Black Princess Ascendant
by Silently Watches
Summary: Sequel to "Princess of the Blacks". Last year, Jen had to contend with a deadly Tournament, a revived Dark Lord, a meddlesome Headmaster, and worst of all, reconciliation attempts by her parents. Surely her OWL year can't be anywhere near as complicated. Can it? fem!bisexual!Harry/Luna (it's happening this time, I promise!), powerful!dark!Harry, NOT for children!
1. Summer Emergencies

**Let's see… BAMF antihero/villain protagonist, check. Sane and deadly Dark Lord, check. Familial angst aplenty, check. Muse bouncing around like a squirrel on cocaine, check and double check. Looks like we're ready to roll.**

**Disclaimer:** Did James and Lily trust their security to someone outside their cottage, even though Bill later proved that having the Secret Keeper living under the Fidelius Charm he protects is entirely possible? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 1  
****Summer Emergencies**

"Sirius, I've been looking all over for… What _are_ you doing?"

The grey-eyed wizard held out a hand to request her silence while he hung the mirrored ball from the ceiling and charmed it so that all its reflections would be blue and yellow. Lowering his wand, he motioned towards the other decorations. "What do you think?"

His guest quirked one eyebrow and glanced at the palm fronds, the pitchers full of red and green drinks, the golden streamers stretched along the walls, and the phonographs blaring catchy tunes before she ran her hand through her brown locks – just a few shades lighter than the black hair her sisters and he himself bore – and sighed heavily. "Three things, Sirius. First, disco is dead. Thankfully. Second, _why_ are you redecorating the kitchen?"

"It's the summer solstice, Andi!" The woman sighed again and waved her hand in a _'get on with it'_ motion. "Since Narcissa was so insistent on following the Old Ways this past December, I figured, _'Sirius, you old dog, why don't you do the same?'_ But, and here's the kicker, since the _winter_ solstice is all about the Dark, that means that the longest day of the year would be for the Light. It's perfect!"

Andromeda Tonks nee Black, affectionately known to her family as 'Andi', closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "There are so many things wrong with that line of thought that I'm not sure where to start. You _do_ realize that Cissy will probably take offense at this, right? And that Jen's almost sure to side with her over you?"

"Nah, she'd know it was a joke," Sirius replied with a broad smile. Over the past year, he had gotten to know his cousin much better than he ever expected he would, and eventually he discovered that she actually had a slight fondness for elaborate pranks, though she would rather cut out her own tongue than ever admit that fact. The cheerful expression melted off his face as he answered the second question. "And I think Jen could use a couple of laughs right about now, even if it's just from them chasing me around the house and hexing me."

The other member of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black looked down at his statement. Jennifer, his goddaughter and heiress, had won the Triwizard Tournament hosted at Hogwarts this past year despite being the second youngest competitor, and the reward for her display of skill had been to witness the resurrection of Lord Voldemort, the most violent Dark Lord to wage war upon Magical Britain since Edward Cromwell in the late seventeenth century. She had been tortured and nearly murdered in an unknown graveyard, and it had been only her quick thinking – along with casting the horrendously illegal and dark Imperius Curse – that let her escape.

Only four days had passed since that terrible event, and already he was becoming distraught at her increasing silence and depression. Just the previous afternoon, she had retired to her bedroom before the sun had even set! She needed something to cheer her up, even if just for a few minutes.

Andi finally returned her gaze to him and nodded. "Right now, I don't know that she would necessarily _enjoy_ it, but I do believe she would appreciate the effort you put in. Still, I am a tad confused. You said you wanted to celebrate the Light, yes?"

"Right."

"But as far as I am aware, the actual Light families renounced the Old Ways centuries ago. They don't _have_ solstice celebrations, do they?"

"Not that I've ever heard of."

"So… you're basically pulling all this out of your arse, aren't you?"

"Pretty much," he cheerfully agreed.

She sighed a third time, causing him to wonder if that many of those in such a short time could possibly be unhealthy. "Which brings me back to my final point. It's obvious you have no idea what you're doing."

"Well, _excuse_ me for being out of practice," he said none-too-sullenly, his mood plummeting. "Azkaban doesn't exactly make for the best partying location. Too dreary, too damp, and too many _soul-sucking demons_."

"Well, I do seem to be putting my foot in my mouth today, don't I?" she commented after a brief pause. "Here, I'll finish setting all this up if you find Jen and bring her down."

A whimper escaped him. "Er, well, can't _you_ do that? She's probably still in bed right about now."

"Is the big, brave Padfoot afraid to face one sleeping teenager?"

"Andromeda, she sleeps in the nude," Sirius reminded her with a shiver. "Seeing her run around naked when she was a baby was one thing, but I'd rather not have to see her like that again if I can help it. It's _beyond_ awkward." It had been for him, at least; Jen had not cared one little bit, too familiar with grown men staring at her bare flesh to have retained any form of body modesty.

Once again he cursed the fact that when he had finally managed to find her the previous summer, she had been working for the past several years in a child brothel.

"And you think it isn't for me, too? The only one of us who _doesn't_ have a problem finding her in that state is Cissy, for obvious reasons."

He groused, "Don't remind me. I spend my time trying to _forget_ that she's a pedophile."

"At least she isn't _your_ little sister," the woman snapped back. "Get upstairs and wake Jen up. It's past noon, for Merlin's sake! Stick the sheet to the bed if you don't want her to get up until you've left the room; it's what I do."

Grumbling as he left his cousin to clean up his clutter – he had little interest and even less talent for interior decorating _before_ his twelve-year stay in prison, let alone after – he exited the room and began climbing the stairs. His mood lifted slightly as he passed a large landscape painting hanging in the stairwell where his mother's portrait had once been. In return for keeping the wretched thing, Kreacher, the Blacks' house-elf, had been willing if not exactly enthused to remove the reminder of the foul old harpy from its place. _Thank Merlin he was agreeable that day; I shudder to think how much longer the restoration would have taken had I given in to my first impulse and _Confringo_'ed the damn thing, wall and all._

He continued to the third and top floor before turning to the right. This level of the building had once provided space for numerous members of the family, but as of today, only he and Jen actually resided in the house. Andromeda, along with her husband Ted and her daughter Dora, lived just outside Lancaster while Narcissa called a manor in the Wiltshire countryside home. Sirius was unsure how much longer _that_ arrangement would last, however; her husband, Lucius Malfoy, had been Voldemort's right-hand man in the previous war, and he doubted anyone had supplanted the blond dandy while the Dark Lord had been out of commission.

_At least she knows she can stay here if it gets too bad. Mr. No-Nose didn't have the best of tempers thirteen years ago, and Jen escaping his clutches must have brassed him off royally. Let's just hope he doesn't take it out on Cissy; for all that she's a pervert and a blind bigot, she's also one of us. Not to mention, if Jen found out her 'Auntie' was murdered, there's no telling how she'd react. Well, except __**violently**__; the dark witches in this family are traditionally good at that._

Sirius's feet stopped immediately outside his goddaughter's closed door, and he hesitated for a moment before knocking firmly. "Jen! Time to get up!" When there was no response, he repeated the call before reluctantly twisting the knob, the door slowly creaking open.

Sticking his head through the crack, he barely withheld a laugh at the girl sprawled facedown on top of her bed; to his relief, she was clothed in the same dress she had been wearing the previous day. Loki, her raven familiar, aimed a piercing glare at him from the headboard before taking wing and flying out her open window. _She must have been truly exhausted yesterday. I almost feel sorry for having to wake her. Almost._ Smirking, he conjured a large balloon filled with ice-cold water. "Come on, Jen, you better get up on your own before I have to do something _unpleasant_." She did not stir at his soft, singsong voice, so he giggled and levitated the heavy balloon across the room until it hung a couple of feet above her. "Last chance. Three… two… _one_… Fire!"

The projectile fell and burst, soaking her with its contents.

He laughed uproariously. "That's what you get for staying up… all… Jen?" To his consternation, the young witch had not responded to his prank in the slightest. _That's weird. If there's one way of getting her out of bed, it's splashing her._ Tiptoeing warily towards her – it was entirely possible that she was feigning sleep in order to lure him nearer before she retaliated – he shook her shoulder only to jerk his hand back from her scorching flesh. It felt like her blood was literally _boiling_ in her veins.

"Jen!" Unmindful of her drenched outfit, he grabbed the collar of her dress and rolled her onto her back. Now that he was close enough, he could see just how red and clammy her skin was, as well as how wet the sheets underneath her were. _Was she sweating the whole night? Why didn't she tell me she wasn't feeling well?_ "_Ennervate_!"

A brief spasm told him the spell had worked, and he leaned over to listen when he noticed her lips moving. "…hurts. Put it out. Burns. Bright. Stop…" With a shudder, her slurred voice ended and she grew still again.

"Come on, stay with me. _Ennervate_!" The spell did nothing, the girl too deep in her fevered somnolence. Desperate now, he screamed, "Kreacher!"

The miserable being popped into the room at his call. "Master bes—" The house-elf's eyes opened wide as he noticed what was happening. "Miss Jen!"

"Andi's in the kitchen. Bring her up here. Now!"

For once not arguing, Kreacher snapped his fingers and disappeared, almost immediately returning with the woman. Taking in the scene, Andi whipped her wand from the pocket of her cream robes and shoved him out of the way. A long, elaborate incantation soon had numbers formed from different colored smokes rising from Jen's skin. "That can't be right."

"What is it?" he demanded.

"Her temperature's much too high, but that's the only measurement that makes any sense. Heart rate, breathing, blood pressure; they're all a fraction of normal, let alone what they should be with her this sick. Has she been unconscious the whole time?"

"A reviving spell had her babbling for a couple of seconds, but that's it, and it didn't work the second time," Sirius said, worry twisting in his belly like snakes. He had never heard of any magical disease behaving like this, and precious few Muggle diseases could affect witches and wizards. Those that did were either inconsequential nuisances or invariably fatal. "What the hell is wrong with her?"

"Don't ask me; I'm not a Healer!" Another flick of her wand caused her to gasp in surprise. "That's why… She's completely magically exhausted. I can't even find her core. It's like she doesn't have a drop of magic left in her."

His eyes widened. "Which explains why she's been so tired lately; her magic's been fighting this off. Do you think it's something she picked up when she was kidnapped?"

"Could be?" Andi answered weakly with a shrug of her shoulders. "There's no way to know. The best thing to do would be to just cool her down; that fever is what will hurt her if we can't stop it."

"Kreacher will prepare a cold bath," the old elf offered, surprising both humans that he was still in the room, before he popped away.

Sirius blinked for a moment. "…Thanks, Kreacher. Should we take her to St. Mungo's after we get her temperature lowered so they can figure out what's going on?"

"You mean where the first thing they'll do is shove a Pepper-Up down her throat and then be shocked with nothing happens?" she shot back. "Jen will get better only to be asked question after question about why potions don't affect her. I doubt she'd accept a simple apology after that."

_Good point_. Nodding at the wisdom of her advice, he asked, "Why _don't_ they work on her? She's never told me."

"Nor me, but Poppy fire-called me a couple of weeks ago about this very topic. She said Jen's core is oddly shaped and possibly interferes with how the potions are meant to access her magic, which is as good an explanation as any. Of course, she also thinks potions make Jen throw up rather than sit around pointlessly, so we have to take that finding with a grain of salt."

"Let's hope Jen can keep her in the dark about that. Poppy does _not_ like being lied to." A faint smile appeared on Sirius's face then as he fondly recalled having to go to her after one particularly furious spat pitting James and himself against Snivellus in their fifth year and trying to make her believe the enormous reindeer antlers growing from their heads and their feet switching positions had been a joke gone horribly wrong. The old battle-axe had seen through their deception and given them detention, though at least she had not told McGonagall what they had done. He had already been in enough trouble after the _very_ poorly thought out decision to sneak firewhiskey into the dorms.

Unaware of his reminiscing, the brunette blushed faintly. "I _might_ have let that misconception stand. It's just a little white lie, right?"

"True, very true." A pop, and Jen disappeared, leaving only her dress to fall heavily to the floor. Curiosity making itself known, he asked, "How do you even know those spells you used on her? Were you training to be a mediwitch at one point?"

"Oh, no. You see, Metamorphs respond very _strangely_ to many diseases, and most of the time it's best to just treat their symptoms until they recover on their own. Dora's Child Healer was more than happy to teach me a few of the basics about how to monitor her."

He nodded with a sigh. "That's all we can do for Jen right now, too, isn't it?"

"Probably."

The pair spent the rest of the day caring for the youngest member of their family, which mostly consisted of simply switching out cold compresses and maintaining the cooling charm they erected around her bed. Her fever finally broke right at sundown, allowing her to slip into a deeper sleep. Sirius and Andi exchanged one last significant look before the woman departed for her own house; despite how independent the girl was, they would make sure she got some proper rest until she had fully recovered.

* * *

Jen reluctantly pulled her attention away from her book when the wards informed her of their newly arrived guest. "Dumbledore's here." The doorbell rang as if to confirm her declaration.

"I wonder what in Merlin's name he wants now," Sirius muttered before rising from his desk. "Shall we adjourn to the drawing room?"

With great reluctance, she accepted the man's offered hand and let him pull her to her feet. She did not like having to rely on _anyone_, but she was still suffering the effects of her annual fever two days earlier. Every year since an old Haitian witch named Elsie had inducted her into the macabre mysteries of Voodoo, she spent a full twenty-four hours unconscious and ill, struggling to complete such simple actions as even breathing. Just as the winter solstice was the day when dark magic was at its strongest, the summer solstice was a time for those of light magic.

As a black witch, the darkest of the dark, that one day saw her normally immense power reduced to nothing, saw her laid there helpless and weak. She _despised_ being weak.

Moving slowly in deference to her unsteady steps, Sirius guided her down the hallway to the drawing room, both ignoring the bell's increasingly demanding rings. This room was where all but the closest of friends were received, hence its proximity to the front door and its connection to the Floo Network. A wave of the man's wand had the furniture inside rearranging itself, a soft sofa and a single unpadded chair facing each other in the middle of the floor while all the other seats took up positions along the walls. Settling Jen into the couch before plopping down on her left side, he called, "Kreacher, could you show our guest in?!"

"He is not happy with you right now," she commented as her magical sonar reported the house-elf downstairs in the kitchen practically throwing a pan into the oven and popping to the door. Sirius simply laughed at her words. "Honestly, I'm surprised you're having Kreacher bring Dumbledore to us. Being escorted by a servant is quite the snub."

The Head of the Blacks nodded and leaned back into the cushions. "Oh, trust me, I know. Before serving time in Azkaban, even just last summer, I would have greeted him myself, and he knows it; this is a good way of pointing out just how much of my respect the stunts he pulled over the past year have cost him. The chair is to reinforce that message. I'm actually interested to see if he conjures one of his normal squishy armchairs rather than sit in it."

"Because by doing so, he rejects our hospitality," she said, the plan unfolding in her mind. "You will have already shown that you have a grievance with him, so that would be yet another bridge burned. I presume his persistent demands for me to go back to the Potters are why I'm not just at your right hand, but seated right next to you?"

"Exactly. You're a Black now, whether he likes it or not. The sooner he gets that through his skull, the better."

"Very impressive. Here I thought Aunt Cissy was the politician in the family."

"Who do you think taught me all this stuff?" he asked with a broad grin. She stifled her chuckles when the door opened and the subject of their conversation entered the room. "Mr. Dumbledore, we were not expecting you today."

"I do apologize, my boy. I have been so busy recently that I forgot to call ahead." He hesitated a brief moment before lowering himself into the chair set out for him. "You seem to have been able to prepare for my arrival despite the short notice, however."

Sirius nodded but said nothing.

The old man sighed. "Very well, then. I take it you received the message I left you?"

"A simple feather isn't much of a message, but if you were trying to tell me that you were reactivating the Order, yes, I got it."

"The Order?" Jen asked in confusion.

"Order of the Phoenix, a group founded to stand against Voldemort during the War. Well, the _last_ war, technically, since we seem to be in a second one now," Sirius qualified. "Basically, we went wherever the Death Eaters showed up and tried to limit the damage they caused and help the DMLE capture them if we could."

Understanding hit as she recalled something he had said following her own encounter with the Dark Lord. "So _that's_ why you were dueling Voldemort that one time you told me about. I had wondered why you would do something like that."

"No, I dueled him because I was young and stupid and in denial of my own mortality. He disabused me of that last notion real quick."

Dumbledore coughed lightly to regain their attention. "Indeed, though ultimately you did survive and became wiser for it. And may I say, Miss Black, that it heartens me to hear that you have lost the fear you had just a week ago of speaking Voldemort's name."

"Oh, I was never afraid," she denied airily. "I just noticed how everyone else reacted and decided it was pointless to terrify them all unnecessarily. We all knew to whom I was referring, so saying _'You-Know-Who'_ instead of _'Voldemort'_ made little difference."

"That ingrained panic is the precise reason why those of us with courage _must_ call him by that name. Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself."

She smiled with all the false politeness she could dredge up. "A nice, rational argument. Unfortunately, fear – and a fear reinforced by society, even more so – is innately _irrational_. All the logic in the world cannot stop that instinctual, visceral response."

"Both of you have very good points," Sirius interjected, cutting off the headmaster's response. "Nevertheless, I very much doubt that you came here to debate philosophy with my scion."

"True, true. You might have guessed this already, but I was hoping that you would be willing to join the fight against the Dark once again. Despite your loss to Voldemort himself, I seem to recall you being a talented Hit Wizard who was quite capable of fighting nearly any of his Inner Circle to at least a draw." Dumbledore smiled congenially to reinforce the praise.

"Unfortunately, I shall have to disappoint you." The old politician stilled at Sirius's words. "I have responsibilities now that I did not back then, responsibilities that require me to think of others before myself. I am unsure if the interests of the House of Black would be best served by allying ourselves with your organization."

Jen forced herself not to join their unwanted guest in gaping at her godfather in surprise. He had accepted the knowledge that _she_ was a dark witch, and his opinions in the Wizengamot were often more along the views of the Neutral Houses than those of the Light bloc, but she knew that he held nothing but disgust and hatred for the Death Eaters, which was part of the reason he and Lucius had avoided each other over the past year despite Cissy spending most of her time in Grimmauld Place.

_For all that he is an incorrigible prankster, he truly does take his role as our Head of House seriously_, she thought, smiling in her mind at the unintentional pun. _When Cissy last visited, she mentioned that Arcturus had carefully navigated the waters of neutrality so he wouldn't commit the family to the losing side of the war, whichever side that wound up being. I can tell that part of him __**wants**__ to rejoin this band of do-gooders, but as he said, he's putting the rest of us first._

Dumbledore swiftly shook his head as if to convince himself that he had misheard the other man. "I do not think you understand the gravity of your situation. Voldemort does not forgive, and he does not forget. You can try to stay out of his way, but he will want revenge for your actions against him in the last war, to say nothing of Miss Black's a mere week ago. He _will_ come for you sooner or later. Do you honestly not want friends to come to your aid when he decides that time has arrived?"

"I understand just fine. What _you_ seem to have forgotten, however, is that our family is known for having some of the best warwards outside of Gringotts, and that reputation is not without merit. They will be able to hold him off long enough that he loses interest or, in the worst case scenario, give us enough time to flee to safer climes." Sirius crossed his arms and leaned back, a position their family had come to understand meant that further discussion would be naught but a waste of time.

"Very well," the leader of the Light replied reluctantly. "If you are so insistent on staying here, might I offer to add a protection of my own? The Longbottoms and Potters have both taken refuge under the Fidelius Charm, and I would be more than willing—"

"No."

"Whatever do you mean by _'No'_, my dear?" Dumbledore asked her.

She pushed her flare of anger back to the depths of her mind, no matter how deserved it was. "Exactly what it sounds like. Should we decide to use that charm, we will cast it ourselves. Under _no_ circumstances will we give the authority to decide who may or may not enter _our home_ to anyone who does not bear the name of Black."

_Especially not when that unnamed person has seemingly made it his goal to force me back into the Potters' arms; if we let you erect the Fidelius, you would almost certainly make yourself the Secret Keeper, and the very next day we would find them moving in. I would sooner kill them and you in such a manner that even Voldemort fears my wrath than meekly surrender to them so much as a scrap of power over me. For the Baron's sake, I'd watch Britain and all within her borders __**burn**__ before I capitulated to their demands and retook that abhorrent surname._

"You tell him," Sirius praised quietly. Turning back to their 'guest', he said, "Was there anything else you needed to speak to us about? Surely there are other items on your agenda more important than merely making small talk."

Dumbledore stood from the uncomfortable chair, straightening his robes with sharp movements. He obviously recognized the dismissal for what it was, and equally clear was that he was not happy about it. "Actually, there was one more topic I wished to discuss, specifically with you, Miss Black. What condition do you have that required Madam Pomfrey to prescribe ongoing treatment?"

"I do not understand how that is any of your concern, Headmaster. Did you learn about this because she asked you to pass along a message to me?" _The only thing it could possibly be about is the scar-reducing potion I've been using to regain my sight. She __**did**__ say that I would probably be fully recovered before I finished this month's vial, and I didn't exactly give her the chance to check my progress the last time I was in her 'care'._

He smiled faintly, the expression devoid of any sort of humor. "On the contrary, if your disorder poses a risk to other students, it _is_ my concern."

_You just won't let it go, will you, you wrinkled bastard? Fine, two can play at this game._ "I would be quite surprised if my yeast infection could ever be considered a public health issue." He tried and failed to suppress a sickened grimace at her words; considering his advanced age, she knew he would be extremely uncomfortable the moment she so much as implied that her visits with the nurse related to her genitals in any way. "As I said, nothing you needed or wanted to know. My message, if you please?"

"Ugh… She wanted to let you know that you should continue taking your potion every other or every third day from now on and then stop once there is no further improvement. You have one final checkup with her when you return to Hogwarts. If you don't mind, I think I'll take my leave now."

A loud crack split the air; Narcissa wavered on her feet for a moment before falling. Jen threw herself out of the sofa to catch the woman before she could dash her head against the hardwood floor. _What the hell?! Her core is practically empty; I'm shocked she even had enough power left to teleport. What has she been up to for the past few days?!_

Exhaustion was not the only problem; her aunt's arms and face were littered with cuts, and the fingertips of her right hand had been abraded to the point that they, too, were oozing blood. Someone had been working her over, and hate raced through Jen's body as the feel of Lucius's core rose from her memory. He had been in the graveyard when Voldemort returned, and in fact was one of the Dark Lord's chief lieutenants. _If I find out that he had __**anything**__ to do with this, he's a __**dead man**__._ Magic amplifying her voice to echo down to the kitchen, she cried, "Kreacher, get Andi!"

The elf, apparently hearing the distress in her words, vanished.

"Allow me to help, Miss Black," Dumbledore ordered, whipping out of his pocket what she could only assume was his wand. This was the first time she had ever payed attention to his focus, and to her surprise and disconcertment, she felt nothing. It was as if there was a long, thin void in her sonar.

"We don't _want_ your help!" She lightened the weight of Cissy's body and spun so that she knelt between her aunt and that inhuman wand. The last object she encountered that she could not feel through the world's magical currents was a pendant depicting Holda, more commonly called Mother Earth, that her friend and housemate Luna Lovegood had offered her immediately prior to the final Task of the Triwizard Tournament. That little trinket was supposedly protective in nature, but just a second or two of contact had come close to killing her due to it being imbued with white magic. Without knowing exactly _whose_ hand had crafted the old man's wand, there was no way she would permit him to cast even a single spell on any member of her family.

No matter who was responsible, it was likely better to keep him away from them anyway. Of the fourteen entities who could have made it, half of them hated her for what she was while the others did not concern themselves with trivial issues like _'collateral damage'_.

"Miss Black, that is no way to speak to someone willing to assist you. Don't allow your pride—"

"Enough!" Sirius turned to her and gestured towards the stairwell. "Take Cissy to an empty room until Andi gets here. Dumbledore, it's time for you to go. Feel free to use our Floo to return to Hogwarts."

"My boy, surely you understand—"

"I understand that you need to leave. Now."

She tuned the pair out as she carried her aunt up to the third floor, repairing the woman's wounds while she walked. She could find nothing wrong with Cissy beyond the obvious, but Andi had recently displayed a far more extensive grasp of magical healing than she herself had. Better that the elder of her aunts come and say she had fixed everything than risk harming one of the most important people in her life because she assumed she knew better and missed something. Not even she was quite _that_ arrogant.

The last of Cissy's cuts and scrapes healed, Jen gently laid her on the bed in the room next to her own. Now it was just a matter of waiting. Waiting for Andi's diagnosis. Waiting for her aunt to awaken. Waiting for the name of her attacker.

And waiting for the best time to pay the guilty party a little visit. It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but this debt _would_ be repaid.

* * *

A banishing charm flung Narcissa into the unyielding stone wall. Slumping to the ground, she remained motionless and closed her eyes until they were just barely cracked. Perhaps if her abuser thought she was unconscious, he would leave her.

Thankfully, her deception seemed to work, or perhaps he had just grown bored. Either way, the Dark Lord Voldemort lowered his wand with an irritated huff. "Foolish stubbornness truly does run in your family, doesn't it? I ask for a simple thing, and yet you continue to refuse me. Oh well, no matter. I have all the time in the world, and none can hold out against me forever. You _will_ comply with my desires sooner or later." The hem of his robes fluttered in his wake as he walked calmly out of the room.

From his position beside the open door, Lucius sighed. "You can stop with the act, Narcissa."

Her eyes shot open, and she watched him warily. "How did you know I was awake?"

"After being married to you for 22 years, I should hope I can tell when you're pretending to sleep." He pushed off from the wall and strode halfway across the room towards her. "What I can't understand is what you mean to accomplish with this show of opposition. His patience is not limitless; just do as our Lord com—"

"_Your_ Lord, Lucius, _not_ mine," she snarled. He jerked away from her, shocked at the vehemence in her voice. "He can cajole me all he wants, torture me all he wants, but I _will not_ take his Mark. Not now, not ever. I would rather die."

"What has come over you? Before this past week, you never expressed any disagreement with our goals. Has spending all your time with your cousin caused you to develop a sudden fondness for Muggles and Mudbloods?"

She forced herself to her feet and glared at him. "You are not normally this dense. I don't care about them; what I care about is that _he tried to murder my niece!_ If you can honestly stand there and think that I would _ever_ turn against my family, you do not know me nearly so well as you think you do!"

"Don't be a fool, Narcissa!" he protested. "I have done all I can to persuade him not to harm you, but I can't protect you for much longer if you _don't bend_. Four days you have tried his patience, but today he finally hexed you; what will your continued obstinance earn tomorrow?" The blond crossed the remaining distance and grabbed her shoulders. "You are either with him or against him, you know this. Don't throw your life away for your pride in a dying House!"

Her anger roaring in her ears, she shoved her husband away. "Better to perish serving my House than betray it for a man who was defeated by a mere babe! Would you sacrifice Draco were you in my place?!"

"If the Dark Lord asked it of me, yes!" Narcissa gaped in astonishment and disgust at his admission. "The Dark Lord is the only one, the _only_ one, who can save our world from the Muggle invasion. I did what I could to counter Dumbledore's obsession with those vile apes in the Ministry, but he is too strong. Buying off Cornelius helped some, but he's just the Minister; he can twist the Wizengamot's orders, but he can't defy them. The Light Houses worship Dumbledore, and the Neutral Houses fear him. If we don't get rid of him and his sympathizers, our society will crumble. Is that what you want?"

"The House of Black has existed for over a thousand years, changing with the times as need be. We can survive an influx of Muggle ideas. If House Malfoy cannot do the same, that is your problem."

Lucius sneered. "You are a Malfoy, too, or have you forgotten?"

"By marriage alone." She held up one hand, crimson leaking from the many shallow lacerations Voldemort's scouring charm had inflicted on her pale skin. "It is Black blood that flows through my veins. It was a Black womb from which I was born. It is Black teachings that have guided me all my life. In any conflict between Malfoy and Black, you _know_ where I will stand, and your servitude to the Dark Lord has created exactly that."

"Fine. If you are so determined to die for your birth family, who am I to stand in your way?" He walked to the open door and looked back at her. "I will not come here tomorrow, nor the day after. I can only hope you open your eyes before the Dark Lord decides to close them forever." The door slammed shut behind him.

"My eyes _are_ open, Lucius." She moved to the rug in the middle of the floor and dropped to her knees on the unforgiving stone. Though she doubted it was due to her husband's pleas as he had convinced himself, Voldemort _had_ been treating her with kid gloves thus far, even placing furniture and a small fire pit in what she could tell had once been an empty dungeon. _It's because he knows that I'm the only way he can get to Jen. She killed his familiar, escaped his grasp; of course he wants revenge. Unfortunately for him, she is well protected in Grimmauld Place, and Andi's family would run before he could enter shouting distance. The only one of us he could reach is me, thanks to Lucius._ A dark growl clawed its way out of her throat as she recalled returning to Malfoy Manor on Monday evening, only to be greeted by a stunner from the Dark Lord. She had woken in this room without her wand, and after several attempts, she had accepted that he had anticipated her plan to escape and so had erected at least an anti-Apparation jinx, possibly even an actual ward, over the entire dungeon.

She rolled up the carpet and stared at the large eihwaz rune, each line as wide and deep as her middle finger, that she had been hiding. Despite the fact that she was a prisoner, she was also a Pureblood, and so whoever was charged with her care had provided her with a magically reinforced metal fork rather than the wooden spoon they would normally give Muggleborns to eat with, assuming those captives had anything at all. It took a great deal of effort and time, forcing her to work every minute she was not fitfully sleeping or being 'recruited', but she had finally managed to carve the rune into the hard floor. She was quite thankful for the long stretch of solitude Voldemort had given her a couple of days earlier; without it, she would not yet be finished.

_I _**_really_**_ wish I had paid more attention in Ancient Runes_, she complained, not for the first time. There were undoubtedly better languages to use for her jailbreak than Futhark, but as she had only taken Runes through OWL level, her options were decidedly limited. Ogham was only good for bodily enhancement, and she could not for the life of her – possibly literally – remember any of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, which were used primarily for warding and therefore exactly what she needed. _No use crying over spilled potion, though. Eihwaz is good enough for my purposes; the way it destabilizes magic makes it more or less a runic _Finite_ charm, so with enough power it should break through the jinx. I just hope the Dark Lord didn't throw a ward on me instead, or I might not be able to get away._

Runes normally required a wand to activate them, but since Voldemort had taken hers away, she was forced to _improvise_. Grabbing the fork from under the small bed, she prodded her recent wounds and forced them to bleed anew; that fluid she then smeared over the sides of her rune, ignoring the scrapes she picked up on her fingertips. Blood and crystals could be used to funnel energy into runic scripts, though they were of course inferior to the _Epoto_ charm. She pushed herself from her crouched position up to her knees, the blood-loss making her slightly light-headed, and stuck her abused index finger into the rune. She muttered, "If you're listening, please let this work."

With a bit of effort, she pushed her magic into the symbol. The blood burst into cool blue light, followed by an ear-ringing snap that heralded the destruction of the spell holding her prisoner. Shouts echoed down the hallway, Death Eaters hearing her break through the defenses, and she staggered to her feet. She was so _close_ to her freedom. Spinning on her heel and momentarily spotting Lucius as he burst through the door, she embraced the familiar squeezing sensation of Apparation.

Landing in the the middle of the drawing room of Grimmauld Place, she barely had time to see Jen and Sirius's astonished expressions before she passed out.

* * *

**Silently Watches out.**


	2. Her Mother's Eyes

**Thanathos:** Yes, I am aware that the word "rune" refers to Germanic scripts, primarily Elder and Younger Futhark. That said, I have a very hard time figuring out exactly what Hogwarts students would be doing in that class after third year should they be using that definition because with only 24 symbols, they should be able to learn it all in a single year easily. In my head-canon, Ancient Runes cover **any** set of symbols that can be used for manipulating magic.

**Frosty Wolf:** This story is the second in either a trilogy or tetralogy; it depends on how much I do for sixth and seventh years.

**arapto:** Dark witches don't spend the entire summer solstice sick; _black_ witches do. The other members of House Black don't know this, however, because there hasn't been a black magic practitioner in their family in centuries.

**I have some good news for all of my faithful readers! Now that **_**Consequence of Misunderstandings**_** is complete, I'll be able to post new chapters of this story every other week rather than every third.**

**All right, guys, seriously? **_**ONE-HUNDRED NINETEEN**_** reviews for the very first chapter? Thank you all so much! Maybe I should start letting you have more input if this is the result. Speaking of said input, the most popular suggestion for the fifth Ancient Runes language was Chinese, which I have to admit I somehow forgot about when writing last chapter, so now the fifth-years will learn Egyptian while NEWT students cover Sumerian cuneiform and Lesser Sealing Script. Chapter 1 has been changed to reflect this.**

**Disclaimer:** Did nearly everyone who knew Harry's parents attribute solely his eye color to Lily, seemingly in all other ways casting him as a clone of James? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 2  
****Her Mother's Eyes**

Jen sat silently in Narcissa's room, her attention drawn far more to the still-unconscious woman than to the third-year Charms textbook in her lap. Andi had said that the older witch would likely wake some time this morning, and she wanted a few answers.

Namely, who had been _stupid_ enough to put her aunt in this state.

"She's still out of it?"

She nodded, not turning to face Sirius as he walked through the door and pulled up a chair next to hers. After several moments, he sighed and said, "You know that just sitting here isn't going to make her heal any faster, right?"

"It also won't make her healing take any _longer_, though, will it?" He shook his head. "So there is no reason why I _shouldn't_ stay here."

A shrug of his shoulders told her that he had no response to that. She returned her mind to her book while he simply cradled his chin in his hands. Her fingers running over the text caused a flat voice to sound in her head. _"The Reducing Charm, the partner to the Engorgement Charm, would therefore return the enlarged book, toad, or whatever to its original size. You will be learning both charms together—"_

"She needs to hurry and wake up. There are some bills for the Wizengamot I could really use her advice on— Ow!"

"A _little_ decorum, if you please?" she growled lightly, leaving the Head of the Black family to rub his arm where her thin lightning bolt had zapped him. "She is far more than just a political advisor."

He stuck his nose in the air pompously. "I know that _quite_ well, girlie, but just because she's lying there isn't any reason I can't crack a joke or twenty."

"By the Baron, you are so immature." Jen shook her head in disbelief. "And to think, you almost had me convinced yesterday that you were _respectable_."

"Respectable?" asked a weak voice. Both Blacks whipped their heads towards Cissy as she smiled faintly at them. "If you ever start acting like that, I'll be on the first Portkey out of Britain."

"Cissy!"

She slowly nodded at their twin cries. "How long have I been unconscious?"

Pulling his watch from his pocket, Sirius said, "A tad less than seventeen hours. What in Merlin's name happened?"

"The Dark Lord happened." Her audience became even more focused at those words, if such a thing was possible. "He was waiting for me when I went home on Monday. I barely had a chance to see him before he stunned me."

"Why? What did he want?"

Jen lowered her head as the answer appeared in her mind. "Me."

"Probably." Cissy tried to push herself to a sitting position, gratefully accepting Sirius's help when she was about to lose what little strength she had managed to gather. "What he _said_ he wanted was for me to take his Mark, but yes, I expect he was going to order me to bring you to him the moment the magic had settled."

"He was torturing you for _four days_?" Sirius asked breathlessly. "Not that I'm not glad you're okay, but how in the world are you not… you know…"

"A mindless husk like the Longbottoms?" He grimaced and nodded. "Because he wasn't actually torturing me for all that time. For three days, he was trying every non-violent trick in his grimoire to persuade me to join him. I'm just glad I got out when I did; yesterday was nothing more harmful than a few scouring charms and being banished into a wall, but I don't think I want to know what he had in mind for today."

"And just where was Lucius during all this?" Jen demanded.

"Watching. He had to let the Dark— Voldemort into the Manor, and his only advice after seeing our 'discussions' was to stop being _'foolishly obstinate'_ and accept the Mark like the _honor_ he thinks it is. Speaking of which…" Turning to Sirius, she continued in a strange tone, almost a plea, "My Lord, a daughter of the Blacks seeks sanctuary in the arms of her family. Might you take her under your aegis?"

The wizard sighed softly before he answered formally, "The Head of this House hears her words. For what reason does this daughter require our aid?"

"Her husband has abandoned her, thrown her to enemies of the House. Enemies whose hands she barely managed to escape, and at great risk to her life. To return to him now would surely see her pass beyond the Veil."

"A grave accusation, one a true daughter of this House would not make lightly. Our family cannot ignore this plea and let such a fate befall her. May this child find shelter and succor in the House of her birth once more."

Cissy smiled from her position leaning against the wall. Sirius slumped in his chair, his shoulders heavy with yet another burden. Jen cleared her throat and commented, "This scion dearly hopes an explanation will soon be forthcoming." _In other words, what the bloody __**hell**__ just happened?_

"My taking the Malfoy name when Lucius and I married is more than just a social convention," the older witch explained. "While I have been and will always be a member of this House, so long as I am Narcissa Malfoy, the House of Malfoy has primacy over me. Should Lucius as the Head of House Malfoy demand that I return to Wiltshire, Sirius refusing him could be construed as kidnapping."

_That is all sorts of messed up_, the youngest member of the House of Black noted in the safety of her own mind. She could generally accept and adjust to the eccentricities that came with adoption into nobility, but there were times when she simply had to gape in astonishment at the twisted sense that went into some of the societal rules she now had to follow. "And this dialogue of yours?"

Sirius answered her question this time. "A formal request for asylum. _Now_, if Voldemort wants her back in his clutches, he'll have to take her by force. I'll ask Dora to file the parchmentwork directly since she's a member of the DMLE, and between Narcissa's or my memories and, if worst comes to worst, your signature on an affidavit as a witness, Lucius won't have a leg to stand on."

"Of course, it isn't all sunshine and roses," Cissy groused. "Because I'm taking refuge here, I can't go back to Malfoy Manor for any of my things. I don't even have my wand, for Merlin's sake!"

"Can't Kreacher get her belongings for her?"

The wizard shook his head. "Nothing at her home; those are the property of House Malfoy, and since he would be acting as our agent, legally it's theft. Her wand, though, is a different story. I highly doubt even the staunchest traditionalists on the Wizengamot would consider _that_ to belong to Lucius."

"Except we don't know if he has it," the woman said. "The— _Voldemort_ might very well have kept it with him, and even if we did want to risk sending Kreacher to take it back, I don't know where he had me imprisoned."

"So we go to Ollivander to get you a replacement until we can figure out how to reclaim your original wand," Sirius offered. "It's not an ideal solution, I know, but it's probably the safest one."

Cissy nodded. "You actually make a good point, unbelievable as that sounds." His canine whine brought a smile to both witches' faces. "Now, Jen, I've been wondering this since I woke up. Why in the world did you cut your fringe off?"

She smiled, brushing her fingertips against the short hair that no longer hid her blindfold as it had done throughout her year at Hogwarts. "Madam Pomfrey sent me a message via nosy old bastard yesterday before you arrived. I'm supposed to spend alternate days on my potion now, so I figured I could use the days I _don't_ take it getting reacquainted with seeing for longer periods of time."

"So you're still wearing your blindfold… why?"

"I'm sorry, I was a _little_ distracted by my aunt being unconscious, not to mention that I might have wanted her here and awake when I took it off," she snapped back at Sirius's question. Huffing, she undid the knot of the fabric wound round her eyes and stared at the red cloth as it fell to her lap. Her newly unbound gaze swept over the room, each object she could feel with her sonar suddenly gaining a new dimension. "Wow."

She had been scrying for years, true, but even the replacement sight that technique granted her did not compare to seeing the world with her _own two eyes_.

"May I?" Jen looked to the woman on the bed and drank in the pale skin and blue eyes of her aunt, even smiling a bit at the unusual white streaks marring her otherwise inky hair. Cissy returned the expression with a beam of her own. "If people thought you were a heartbreaker before, they have no idea what they're in for now."

"Of course she is. She's my goddaughter, after all!" Sirius crowed.

The girl ignored the mutt's barking as she brought one hand near her face. "I have to admit that I'm a little shocked. When I was younger, I distinctly remember needing glasses, but now I can actually see things closer than a hundred feet away."

"I'm not terribly surprised about that. Your mother always had excellent vision, easily good enough to offset any flaws you inherited from your father."

"Wait a minute. That makes no sense," the wizard slowly said. "How in the world would Lily's eyes matter if she had James's sight before? And how do you even know how good Lily's eyes are, anyway?"

She turned to him, grinning wickedly as his face rapidly grew cold and pale. "Does that answer your question?"

"H-How?" He spun around to face Cissy and growled, "_What_ did you _do_?"

"Nothing I didn't agree to," Jen cut in airily. A twist of her wrist conjured a hand mirror, and looking into its depths, she admired the rich purple orbs that stared back.

* * *

"_Sirius, stay here and fill out the rest of the parchmentwork with Professor McGonagall. Dora, shouldn't you be at work?" At her mother's reminder, the now white-haired young woman yelped and ran over to the Floo. "We'll be back down for lunch, and then we should go ahead and run over to Diagon Alley for her school supplies."_

_Narcissa watched Andi grab one of Jen's arms and, realizing what thought was running through her elder sister's mind, latched onto the other. The pair then frogmarched the girl out of the drawing room and towards the stairs._

"_I __**can**__ walk on my own, you know."_

"_Ah, but you don't know __**where**__ we're going, so it's best that we guide you," came Andi's faintly mocking retort. "Wouldn't want you getting lost, after all."_

_A sharp force shoved Narcissa's hand away from Jen's limb, Andi suffering the same fate. "Between that aborted surprise of yours and your reticence now, I am __**not**__ necessarily in the best of moods."_

"_Fine, fine, don't get your knickers in a twist," the piebald woman remarked, waving away the younger witch's complaints._

_Jen smirked. "Now Cissy, you talk as if you think I'm wearing any…"_

"_Just stop, both of you. It's too early in the day for me to handle your flirting." Both of them turned shocked faces to Andi as she opened the door to the library. "Jen, we actually have something rather important to talk to you about."_

"_Okay?" The teenager settled onto one of the couches and moved the book lying on the center cushion to the table beside her. "So what is this oh-so-important topic?"_

_Rather than take the other sofa, the two women conjured chairs and sat within arm's reach. Her nerves taut with sudden anxiety, Narcissa blurted, "Would you like to become a full member of the family?"_

"_I see. So you do not see me as one now, despite welcoming me into it yourself just last week?" Jen asked with pursed lips._

"_That's not what she meant," Andi denied, glancing sharply at her. The younger of the two sisters blushed at that rebuke. There was a reason she was the politician in the family; the iron control over her nervous tongue she had had to develop in her childhood and adolescence made her quite talented in spouting views that she did not necessarily believe. Unfortunately, she still slipped up, though thankfully that was only around family. "What she was __**trying**__ to ask was if you wanted to be a Black in more than just name."_

_**That**__ caught Jen's attention. "And how would such a thing be possible?"_

"_Blood magic." Narcissa smiled as the girl's head swung back to her. "Yes, Andi and I have read _Arte of the Succubus_, as well. In fact, I think most of our family does at some point or another, and possibly for the same reason, too. I __**know**__ that Sirius and I both thought it was erotica."_

"_Same here."_

"_Yep."_

And the Black tradition of perversion extends to yet another generation_. Shrugging her idle thoughts away, she continued, "There are a number of useful if legally frowned-upon spells and rituals in that book and its later volumes, but the one we are discussing at the moment is appropriately termed blood adoption."_

"_And this would, what? Just inexplicably turn me into a Black?"_

"_Well… not __**inexplicably**__," she temporized. "You see, blood adoption was originally created as a way of taking in bastard children. If a wizard chooses to sow his wild oats hither and yon, there's always a chance that the product of one of his dalliances would wind up being an extremely powerful witch or wizard. In such a case, that wizard can bring that child into his household through blood adoption, turning him or her into a legitimate heir. Obviously, there is only one method to do this: he would have to replace all the traits the child inherited from his or her mother with those of the man's legal wife."_

_Jen's mouth dropped open in shock. "So you're suggesting that I give up one of the Potters as my parent and take a Black in their place?"_

"_Only if you want to, of course! It's just a suggestion to think on, and the offer—"_

"_When can we start?!"_

_Narcissa's own jaw snapped shut as her flush returned. How in Merlin's name had she seen Jen's eagerness to be rid of at least one parent who abandoned her and misinterpreted it for disdain? Clearly Draco's aversion to spending any time with her had caused her abilities to read teenagers to rust._

"_Now, if you want. All we have to do is pick the right parent," Andi said cryptically._

_Jen's enthusiasm evaporated as she frowned in Andi's direction. "Explain."_

"_You know that Sirius has made you his heir, yes?" At Jen's nod, the brunette continued, "Well, we can slot you into the line of succession so that that position becomes your birthright rather than simply a gift from him, which would also make your future ladyship unassailable. However, doing so means we have to be rather careful in how we do this."_

"_I'm not sure I follow," Jen murmured._

_Narcissa laid one hand on top of Jen's own. "The thing we have yet to mention is that blood adoption can only be done __**once**__; a second procedure would kill you. That means that Sirius becoming your blood father is right out."_

"_Why?"_

"_Because Lily Potter would still be your mother," answered Andi. "What's more, we would be claiming that she somehow gave birth to two children on the same day to two different fathers."_

_Jen nodded slowly. "All right, I can see how that would be difficult to explain away."_

"_Quite. Next in the line of succession would be Regulus, Sirius's brother, but that raises even __**more**__ questions. Since you were born on July thirty-first of 1980, you would have had to have been conceived in late October of '79. Reggie died in __**March**__."_

"_So not only would Lily have gotten preggers by two men at the same time, one of them would have been a corpse, too," the girl laughed._

_A few chuckles escaping, Narcissa agreed, "Yes, and there is little point in such an obvious lie. So, we have to look farther along the family tree."_

_Jen's snickers slowed and stopped, and she cocked her head in curiosity. "How far down the tree?"_

_The two sisters looked at each other before the younger of the pair continued, "A bit of a ways. This is actually a good thing for you to know; if you're the heiress of this House, you'll be expected to be able to recite our genealogy from memory for at least the last few generations."_

"_You can consider this your first lesson," Andi said with a wicked grin. "So, Sirius is the current Lord Black, though childless, and obviously Regulus never had any kids of his own. Their father, Orion, was the second and last child of our former Lord, Arcturus; his sister Lucretia married Ignatius Prewett late in life and died without issue. Arcturus had two younger siblings, Lycoris and another Regulus, neither of whom married or had children. There were rumors that they were far too involved with each other to bother looking outside the family, if you know what I mean. These were the three children of Sirius the Seventh—"_

"_Sirius the __**Seventh**__?" Jen interrupted._

"_The 'Ancient' in our House's title isn't just for show; we can reliably trace our lineage as far back as the eighth century, so after a while, we almost have to recycle names," replied Narcissa. "I'm actually very lucky in that regard considering that I'm only the third Narcissa in the family, but poor Andi is the twenty-first."_

"_I'm named after an entire galaxy; of __**course**__ we would keep using that name. Our sister Bellatrix has the second most common girl's name, if you were curious."_

_Jen's face smoothed in surprise. "I hadn't even thought of that, but the book I was reading this morning was written by a woman who called herself Bellatrix the Sixteenth."_

"Veela Colonies from a Pureblood Perspective_?" Andi asked, to which the girl nodded. "Yes, that was the last Bellatrix before ours. Getting back on track, Sirius the Seventh was the first of five children born to Phineas Nigellus Black, widely regarded as the least popular Headmaster of Hogwarts in recent memory due to his policy of exchanging higher marks for sexual favors. Phineas Nigellus also created the modern anti-pregnancy charm. The second child was 'just Phineas' Black, who was disowned in… 1895?"_

"_I think so. '94 or '95," Narcissa agreed._

"_Anyway, he was disowned for supporting Muggle rights, specifically that Muggles who witness magic should not be Obliviated. After that is Cygnus the Ninth, who married Violetta Bulstrode and had three children: Pollux, Cassiopeia, and Dorea, who is actually your great-grandmother on your father's side. Pollux had three children of his own, named Walburga, Alphard, and yet another Cygnus. Walburga is Sirius's mother, so we can ignore her, and Uncle Alphard was disowned for giving Sirius some gold after he ran away when he was sixteen."_

"_And even if Sirius could bring him back into the family posthumously, he wouldn't have any children to worry about, anyway. He never developed an appreciation for the fairer sex."_

"_Cygnus the Tenth, however, is __**our**__ father, and as you know, he had three children, too: Cissy, me, and our elder sister Bellatrix."_

_The girl gave them an amiable nod. "I'll take your word for that; you lost me three or four generations ago."_

"_Don't worry, memorizing all this isn't impossible," Andi said kindly. "Father insisted that we learn the seven generations preceding us, and while it took us a few years, we were less than half your age and had absolutely no motivation to do so."_

"_It could be worse. Auntie Walburga made Sirius and Regulus learn the past twelve."_

"_Yes, well, Walburga was nothing if not a bitch. Remember that time when—"_

"_I hate to interrupt," Jen cut in, "but could we get back to the conversation at hand, please? At least for the moment?"_

_The sisters blushed, and Narcissa continued, "We probably should. So, Bella. Under normal circumstances, she would be next in line to be the Head of our House, but being sentenced to Azkaban disqualifies her for that position. It does __**not**__, however, disqualify any children she might have had __**before**__ her imprisonment."_

It's a good thing Sirius captured Pettigrew and brought him to the DMLE_, she thought to herself as she considered the fact she just mentioned. _Had he not, the Wizengamot would never have overturned his conviction and made him eligible to be our Head, and with Andi still disowned and me already married but without a second child to take the name Black, it's likely that our family would have been declared extinct. I don't know that there are any of us left bearing the name except Sirius and Jen.

"_And __**does**__ she have any children?"_

"_Not yet," Andi said with a melancholy smile. "Interestingly enough, she went to Azkaban in November of '81. Were we to adopt you as her child…"_

"_I'd have been born before that date, making me the future Lady Black by both blood and the current Lord's choice," Jen finished._

"_Indeed. Since you would be 'born' out of wedlock, you would be required to take her maiden name, so there is no risk of you needing to extricate yourself from the Lestranges' legacy." Narcissa held up a finger. "And it gets __**better**__. I have visited Bella occasionally since her imprisonment, and while she was not exactly a paragon of mental stability before the Dementors got their claws into her, she's even worse now. No one would believe her were she to deny ever giving birth to you." She paused for a moment as yet another advantage presented itself. "Not to mention, replacing Lily with Bella would elevate you from being a mere Halfblood to a Pureblood. Which would only be important for people outside the family who care about such things, of course," she hastily tacked on at the other woman's glare._

_It wasn't __**her**__ fault than Andi chose to marry and have a child with a Muggleborn!_

"_Strange that you both are so eager to sell out your sister…"_

_The women shared another glance before Andromeda spoke. "While she __**is**__ our sister and we therefore love her despite her personality and choices, we don't necessarily __**like**__ her. Growing up, she was often sadistic, remorseless, and cruel, traits that Walburga praised and cultivated even as our own parents tried to force her to act in a more socially acceptable fashion. Being the route for you to join the family is probably the best thing she will have ever done in her life."_

"_So, after hearing that she was a madwoman, do you want Bella as your new mother?"_

* * *

"…Obviously, I said yes, and we performed the adoption right then and there."

Sirius leaned back into the drawing room couch and scrubbed his face with his hands. "That's just _wonderful_, you two, really. So now Jen's the only child of a _psychotic, mass-murdering terrorist_. Truly a fantastic plan."

"And yet it _still_ leaves me with fewer problems than being the abandoned twin sister of the Boy-Who-Lived would have dropped in my lap," the girl shot back.

"No, now you're just his _half_-sister."

"Is it my fault that James chose to have a forbidden romance with his sworn enemy?"

The Animagus tilted his head down to gaze unamusedly at her dark grin. "You're _really_ going to run with that?"

"Our actual explanation involves Bellatrix pulling an _Imperio-Obliviate_ combination," Narcissa answered from her seat beside Andromeda, who had Flooed in to help with the explanation when the two ladies realized exactly how upset he was. "He can't exactly _deny_ that such a thing ever happened, after all. Not to mention, the worse we portray Bella, the easier time we'll have casting Jen as the classic ill-conceived bastard trying desperately to atone for her mother's atrocities. You know the public will just eat that up."

"And when both Potters claim that she's actually Lily's daughter?"

Jen snorted indelicately. "Like they'll ever be able to prove that. Don't you remember? Aunt Cissy couldn't find where they had filed a single form pertaining to my existence. I don't even have a bloody birth certificate! Between us already casting aspersions on the validity of James's memory and all the official parchmentwork supporting our own claims, the courts would inevitably side with us if it ever got that far." She looked down, a soft, quivering tone entering her voice. "I thought you'd be _happy_ that we found a defense against them trying to take me away from the family."

"Don't even try to pull the whole woe-is-me routine, Jen; no one who knows you well will ever fall for it. You couldn't act pitiful to save your life." He sighed; it wasn't that he was displeased that they found a counter to Dumbledore and the Potters' plan to regain custody. It really wasn't. What troubled him was the exact counter they _had_ found. "I'm just concerned about how much hatred you're going to bring down on yourself when people learn about your new heritage. We can protect you here, but you'll be on your own as soon as you return to Hogwarts."

"Let me handle the other students," she said, dismissing his concerns with a wave of her hand. "One, I'm the junior Triwizard champion; that may not give me the _'eternal glory'_ we were promised, but it should last at least the summer. The sheep love their heroes. Two, I have close friends from all four houses and all three blood purities, not exactly the hallmark of someone who dreams of committing genocide in her spare time. Three, and to push me even farther from the attitude of my 'mother', I spent quite a bit of the year with the now second-year Ravens and Snakes organizing 'playdates' between them." She shrugged at the surprised looks the other Blacks were giving her. "I didn't _plan_ on using that diversion this way – being Candyland's manager for so long left me with a bit of a soft spot for little kids, I guess – but it's certainly going to come in handy. Four, I'm not a conniving Slytherin, but just a bookish Ravenclaw. How much of a threat could I actually pose in the real world?

"And I can always curse anyone who really tries to start something with me, too," she added as an afterthought.

_**That's**__ how much of a threat you can pose_. Sighing again, he asked a question that had been on his mind since the trio of witches began their tale. "So I get that without Lily as her mother in blood, Jen would no longer have the same eyes she did when she was little, but why didn't I notice any other changes after the adoption? And where did you even get Bellatrix's blood to begin with?"

"To answer your first question, there are a few reasons," Narcissa said. "As she was already fourteen by that point and therefore more or less fully grown, there wasn't much that _could_ change. Hair, skin, and eye color, yes, and apparently her eyesight, but little else. Also, the changes would happen slowly, over a number of months, so you wouldn't have had any reason to notice. Besides, they were _already_ practically identical; how much difference would giving her Bella's traits really make?"

"As for how we obtained her blood, it was from the family tree," continued Andi with a jerk of her thumb towards the tapestry covering the room's walls. "When I repaired my portrait where Walburga blasted me off and had you add Dora, I extracted just a little bit from her own. Since the adoption requires willingly given blood, and so does the tapestry, we had a loophole that saved us a visit to Azkaban."

"Assuming no one catches wind that you three used blood magic, or you'll have one-way trips there," he snarked.

Narcissa rolled her eyes. "Two-way, actually. Despite being borderline black in reality, blood magic is classified as type-two dark magic by the Ministry. We would only be in there for ten years, and the case against Jen would probably be dismissed entirely considering the adoptee doesn't perform any actual magic during the procedure. That's _if_ we're ever found out; should we need to admit to a blood adoption at all, we say we had it done inside Gringotts. _Humans_ can't use blood magic legally, but the goblins _can_."

"Which, again, we shouldn't ever have to do because no one can prove that we're lying," Jen finished. The conspirators then shared a grin, confident in their planning.

_And I can't really blame them for feeling that way; short of everyone taking Veritaserum, which probably wouldn't happen in such a relatively minor custody case, they have their hoops covered._ "So what's the plan now?"

"Add Jen to the family tree and then prepare for the oncoming storm."

Nodding at Andi's suggestion, Sirius rose to his feet and beckoned Jen to come with him to the family crest situated in the middle of the tapestry. He tapped the emblem and intoned, "Let the House grow." At his solemn command, the image glowed with a dull green light and the silver threads forming the family motto of _Toujours Pur_ shimmered brightly. _And the family's Slytherin roots show themselves again_. "You just need to smear some blood over the sword, and the tapestry should take care of the rest."

"When you were talking about the family tree last summer, you weren't joking," she muttered as she ran a finger over her left palm. Crimson welled to the surface before she dragged her entire hand over the upright sword in the middle of the crest. The blade shone a particularly dark and ugly shade of red, and a disturbance at the other side of the room caused the four Blacks to move closer to it.

From the portrait of Bellatrix's head extended a second branch labeled _'James Potter'_, but this one did not curl around her as the first, signifying her childless marriage to Rodolphus Lestrange, did. Instead, it stretched out into the empty space just above the image of Dora with her ever-changing hair before growing a large flower. The flower glowed for several moments before wilting, the petals falling off and disappearing, and like a fruit swelling, a circle of holly leaves spread out to showcase a perfect likeness of Jen's face, complete with the grin that never failed to indicate when a plot was brewing in her devious mind. Finally, a strip of parchment faded into existence to proudly proclaim her name as _'Jennifer Bellatrix Black'_, as well as her date of birth.

The two women simultaneously nodded and draped their arms around Jen's neck. Narcissa pointed to the three portraits of the Black Sisters' children sitting in a row before saying reverently, "And the family is complete."

* * *

A knock on his door drew Sirius's attention from the scroll he had been reading with disgust. Already having a good idea of who it was, he called, "Come in!"

Sure enough, Narcissa walked into the room and sat delicately in her customary chair beside his desk. "Jen said you needed to speak to me."

"Yes, I do." He indicated the parchment he had just been reading. "After several days of looking and some help from Kreacher, I _finally_ found Arcturus's copy of your betrothal contract."

She interrupted, "My contract? Why would you need that?"

"Let's say that Dumbledore or Danny Potter manages to defeat Voldemort again. Are you going to want to go back to Lucius afterwards?"

"…No, not really." Narcissa bit her lip for a few moments before she continued, "After telling me that he would be willing to sacrifice Draco on Voldemort's orders, to throw away the only member of his family that he has left, I don't know that I could ever trust or respect him even a little again."

Sirius wince went unnoticed. "I didn't think so, so I was hoping to find some way of annulling your marriage. It would get you out from under the shadow of his thumb faster than an outright divorce, not to mention it wouldn't require you to be in a specific place at a specific time where Voldemort could kidnap you again. While looking, I found out two things. First, Arcturus _really_ wanted to get rid of you; this thing is almost completely in House Malfoy's favor."

"Sirius, I'm a pedophile with absolutely no sexual interest in adults," she said in a deadpan voice. "I needed lust potions in order to bed Lucius enough to conceive Draco. Arcturus knew that if that got out, there was no way I would ever find a suitable marriage, so the better terms he gave Cassius, the faster I could be betrothed."

"You needed potions just to have sex with Lucius?" the wizard asked, morbid curiosity pressing him on even as his good sense desperately shook its head. "Did he never figure out why?"

She shrugged sheepishly. "He _asked_, certainly, but I _am_ a talented liar. I just convinced him that I'm purely a witch's witch."

"Oh," he muttered softly. "Anyway, there are exactly three ways to dissolve your marriage quickly and quietly. First, he could attempt to kill you; Arcturus was at least looking out for you that much. Second, he could do something that would cause his House to be censured and lose its Noble status—"

"Understandable, considering that Lucius is only the third Lord Malfoy," she stated with a sharp nod of her head. "Even being what I am, I deserve a proper match, and a common man just would not qualify."

He smiled slightly before catching himself; after working together with her so long in this room, he had, against his will, become almost _fond_ of her casual arrogance. He was unsure if it was because she was so much less blunt about it now than she had been when they were younger or if he had simply become inured to it through extensive exposure, but either way, his acceptance of the same traits he had hated so much as a teen still sometimes unnerved him. _Azkaban, I'll blame it on Azkaban_. "The third way we could nullify your relationship is if he ever gave his rights as your husband to another."

"Which he did," she breathed. "By standing back and letting Voldemort imprison and torture me, he gave the Dark Lord equal if not greater rights. At least, that's one way to interpret it."

"Exactly. We file a motion to annul and show Madam Bones your memory of those days, and not only is your marriage over, we'll have given the DMLE proof that he's back. It's a win-win for us.

"That said, there is one _tiny_ complication," he continued.

"Oh, Merlin. What is it?"

"Well, according to the terms of the contract, should you annul, it's as if your marriage never happened. We get your dowry back or compensation for any items Lucius can't produce, but you lose all rights to anything you had as Lady Malfoy. You can't take your clothes, any jewels he bought you, nothing."

Narcissa rolled her eyes. "I've yet to see the problem with this."

"_All_ rights," he repeated slowly, "including those to Draco. You would effectively no longer be his mother."

* * *

**Before anyone gets the bright idea of flaming me, I don't want to read **_**one word**_** about Jen's blood adoption coming out of nowhere. I foreshadowed this throughout **_**Princess of the Blacks**_**, starting all the way back in chapter TWO. Some hints were subtle, but there were several that were so blatant I'm surprised no one called me on it.**

**The Black family tree gets fairly complicated, as you can tell, though both the Harry Potter Wiki and HP-Lexicon have good ones to look at for the more recent generations. The only change I've made from theirs is placing the birth of Cygnus IX in 1882 rather than '89; otherwise, figuring out the line of succession becomes **_**much**_** more complicated. The Black family coat of arms I envision is also from the Lexicon rather than the **_**Order of the Phoenix**_** movie even though I used the rest of their tapestry (because you have to admit, the family tree being an **_**actual**_** tree was a pretty cool idea).**

**Silently Watches out.**


	3. Dire Whisper of Destiny

**Everyone who mentioned Lily:** I am well aware that the blood adoption is beyond unfair to her. When I started _Princess of the Blacks_, I already had this twist planned, but at that point James was set to be the in-denial Potter while Lily would be the pushy one. It was only when writing chapter 21 that I discovered she had morphed in my head into a sympathetic character; perhaps now you understand better why I made so many comments in ANs about how I wanted her to act more like a jerk. I don't know how she's going to take the revelation about Jen's adoption other than "not well".

**bissek:** Voldemort was already an "informal" enemy of the House because of what he did to Jen and how Sirius stood against him in the last war, but his actions against Cissy officially put him at the top of the Blacks' Shit List, as you can see in this chapter.

**smeehee:** No, you aren't misunderstanding anything. Based on the not-so-polite discussion Jen and James had in the tent after the Gryffindor Task and her eye color, Pomfrey thinks James had a completely consensual affair with Bellatrix, found out she was pregnant, and then wanted nothing to do with the bastard child he helped create, even after she went to Azkaban and he was the person who _should_ have taken Jen in. Pomfrey understandably isn't happy about that.

**With review replies and my notes, this chapter is nearly 10,000 words. This is **_**NOT**_** the new normal. I'm just glad I wrote the third scene over Christmas break.**

**Disclaimer:** Was Augusta Longbottom portrayed as a decrepit old lady despite being likely around the same age as Hagrid and _definitely_ younger than Slughorn? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 3  
****Dire Whispers of Destiny**

"…_Her husband has abandoned her, thrown her to enemies of the House. Enemies whose hands she barely managed to escape, and at great risk to her life. To return to him now would surely see her pass beyond the Veil."_

"_A grave accusation, one a true daughter of this House would not make lightly. Our family cannot ignore this plea and let such a fate befall her. May this child find shelter and succor in the House of her birth once more."_

The memory ending, Amelia pulled her face from the Pensieve belonging to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and turned to the dark-haired lord seated opposite her desk. "While I do not claim to be an expert in memory evaluation, there are no obvious signs that this has been tampered with. It's proof enough for me to officially recognize House Black as having primacy over House Malfoy in regards to Narcissa Malfoy née Black."

"Thanks, Amelia," Sirius sighed as he slumped in his chair.

"Don't thank me too quickly. You're the one who has to deal with her now." The youngest of the Black Sisters, two years her junior, had never impressed her much when they were at Hogwarts together. Too arrogant, too presumptuous, too used to getting her own way; it was beyond obvious that the girl had been the spoiled baby of the family. Her marriage to that slime Lucius had only further stained her in Amelia's eyes. _Still, nothing for __**me**__ to worry about. If he wants to stick his neck out for her, that's his problem._ Picking up her stamp and dipping it lightly in a bowl of red ink, she slammed the wood onto the bottom of both copies of the primacy form, then nudged one closer to him. "You keep one, and I'll file the other inside the Hall of Records."

He took the indicated roll and slipped it inside his robe pocket. "Will do."

Nodding, she grabbed her quill to resume the seemingly never-ending parchmentwork that went along with the position of Head of the entire DMLE before she noticed that the man had yet to leave. "Was there something else I can do for you, Sirius? And so help me, if the words coming out of your mouth are innuendo…"

"They're not, don't worry. I know how you get about that. After work only." He grinned at her disapproving glare for a moment, though the expression quickly changed to a much more serious one. "I was actually wondering if you had heard—"

"About a Dark Lord who officially isn't Voldemort, but who the sole eyewitness claims is despite telling Fudge otherwise?" she drawled, causing his jaws to clack shut. "Yes, I received the note Auror Tonks wrote, as well as the message Susan relayed to me. I am well aware of the situation, and all necessary steps are already being taken."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Come on, Amelia, I'm not some _Prophet_ reporter digging for a scoop or a random wizard barging into your office. You know me; we fought together in the War, for Merlin's sake."

"If by _'fought together'_, you mean my team had to watch out to make sure a certain freshly graduated Hit Wizard didn't dig himself too deep a hole while moonlighting as a vigilante with his civilian friends, yes, you could say we did. That doesn't mean I'm going to tell you anything more than I already have."

"Dig myself too deep," he scoffed. "I seem to remember us helping you out quite a few times, like when Proudfoot found himself fighting both Lestrange brothers at once."

She grimaced. He had a point, as there _were_ occasions when the extra wands had come in handy, but she was not going to admit to that. Her duty was to ensure the safety of the wizards and witches of Britain, and that job had been difficult enough without the very people she was trying to protect intentionally putting themselves in harm's way. "Be that as it may, the details of our operations are strictly need-to-know. Unless you have a specific complaint, I really do need to get back to work."

"A specific complaint? Okay." He leaned back in his seat. "How about the fact that I was able to go through the Ministry, get to this floor, and enter your office without making an appointment with you first, and all without so much as a single person questioning me? Why didn't I see even a hint of scarlet cloaks in the Atrium? You say you're taking steps, but I can't see a single damn difference, here or in Diagon."

Her left eye twitched behind her monocle; she did _not_ like being taken to task by someone who had no idea what he was talking about. "Just because you see nothing doesn't mean that there is nothing there, Mr. Black."

"It's Lord Black, actually, if we're going to start throwing titles around, Madam Bones." He bent forwards and sighed heavily. "Amelia, my fourteen-year-old goddaughter nearly _died_ just two weeks ago because a monster we thought dead and gone managed to claw his way back from beyond the Veil. I _need to know_."

When he put it like _that_… The witch slumped in her chair and nodded. If that had been Susan facing Voldemort and just barely managing to escape, she would have been pounding down doors, too. "All right, fine. I _do_, in fact, have a couple of my people stationed in the Atrium; they just aren't in uniform. Fudge gave me a great deal of latitude to do what I need to, but he demanded that we don't unduly distress the public. There's a whole squad in Diagon Alley, again in plainrobes, and others are taking shifts in St. Mungo's. Unfortunately, I doubt they'll do any good."

"What do you mean?"

"You were the one who brought up the War; how often did the Death Eaters attack those locations? Four, five times in almost a decade?" He closed his eyes and nodded in comprehension. "They preferred going after soft targets: homes, Muggle infrastructure, scheduled events. The more people I position as additional security, the fewer I can mobilize should they hit _anywhere_ else. At the same time, I can't leave those places completely unguarded, or the loss of life would be disastrous should they prove too tempting to ignore."

Sirius grunted, "So you need more personnel."

"And I'm supposed to get them _where_?" she snarled back. "It's not like I can just wave my wand and conjure another company or two. The last trainee who was strong enough and smart enough to qualify for her Auror badge was Tonks, and that was two years ago. None of the crop last year could hack it, and I don't have much faith in this year's batch, either."

He waved his arms wildly. "I wasn't criticizing you, just saying that to do more, you need more people to work with. That's all."

"Ah, sorry." An aggrieved sigh tore its way through her before she could stop it. "It's not your fault; I just had an argument with our _dear_ Minister about that exact subject this very morning. He wasn't nearly as reasonable."

"That'd sour anyone's day, I'd expect." He tapped his heels against the floor for a few moments as he thought. "What about recruiting from the Hit Wizards? As the Order proved last time, sometimes you just need more wands. They may not be as powerful as proper Aurors, but surely you could use them as backup if nothing else."

She smiled weakly at that recommendation. "Already underway. When I told the instructors what we needed to do, they put their heads together and came up with an abbreviated, combat-focused supplemental course. They won't be able to investigate any better than they already do, but at least they'll know the spells they need for whatever variety of beastie our 'wannabe' Dark Lord throws at them. Not to mention, Alastor organized an absolutely nasty set of lessons on how to counter various dark magics."

"That's good. Very good, actually," Sirius muttered to himself. "How long will this compressed course take?"

"There's the rub; best estimate is four to six months. All of this past year's trainees who qualified to continue to Hit Wizard are getting it by default, and about half of the experienced forces are joining them. Unfortunately, since we're doing this in a large group rather than one or two greenhorns learning from veterans, the squirts who just finished their first year of training have to wait that long to get started on their second year." Realizing she had started idly twirling the quill still in her hand, she tossed it onto the desk. "I'll probably have them work on wandless casting while waiting; it's more time than they'd have gotten if they were trying to figure it out along with the rest of their training. Give them a six-month schedule instead of the full year, and then toss them into the combat course, too."

"That bunch will need remedial training once this is all over, then," he commented in what sounded like a careful voice. "There's no way to leave some of the instructors for the second year and give the combat course in larger groups?"

"It's hard enough to teach fresh Aurors all the details they need to know when it's one-on-one training; we're already looking at ten to fifteen Hit Wizards per instructor. If I make those groups any larger, I'd run a serious risk of sending out people who are greater dangers to our own side than to the Death Eaters'. I'm worried enough about the shortened second year as it is. The last thing I need is for my best fighters to have to split their attention between attacking the enemy and defending the newbies."

"You need more instructors, but since all the wizards who qualify are also the best Aurors you have, you can't pull them off duty to help." Sirius shook his head. "That is a problem."

_Even if he can't do anything about it, at least there's __**someone**__ who understands the difficulties. Probably comes from being a… Hmm._

She ran an assessing eye over him, which did not go unnoticed. "I know I'm a magnificent specimen of a wizard, but I'm not sure it'd be entirely proper for us to—"

"Shut up." Her decision made, she nodded sharply. "You're right; I can scrounge up everything else I need, but it's instructors that are my biggest requirement right now. How would you like to be one of them?"

"…I'm sorry, what?"

"I know you haven't used your training in over a decade – and that's by no means your fault, I know that – but you went through the full two year course before going into the Hit Wizards. I seem to recall you being a rather wicked duelist, too."

"While I appreciate the flattery, it isn't going to get you what you want this time."

She clasped her hands in front of him. "Sirius, I'm _begging_ over here. You won't be the only one teaching. I can probably get the older Hit Wizards, the ones on desk duty or who are starting to slow down, and some of the ones who aren't taking the combat supplement to work with you. All I need is people to cover the first six months with the trainees while my normal instructors are busy with the supplement."

"I— I don't know about this," he answered, uncertainty splashed across his face. "I mean, I'm busy in the Wizengamot—"

"As the regent of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Bones, _so am I_," she said, cutting off his excuse. "And unlike you, I don't have a political beast holed up in my house because she needs asylum who can do my reading and research for me. All I'm asking for is a few hours a week. No fighting on the front lines, no staying here past midnight, just making sure a bunch of wet-eared brats aren't sent off to die. That's it."

He hesitated several seconds before he finally said, "I'll think about it. I can't give you any answer other than that right now."

"That's fine. When you decide one way or the other, just send me an owl."

The wizard nodded before standing and nearly running out of her office, and she was hard-pressed not to jump up and dance a jig. Even if he decided not to accept the position, he had given her a wonderful solution for her biggest problem, but she would not give up all hope just yet. As he had said, she knew him, and because of that she knew that Sirius Black was in no way a passive person. Him coming here to demand information from her showed that _that_ had not changed.

He'd be back.

* * *

A flare of green flames heralded Sirius's exit from the gilded fireplace. He glanced around the opulent room, surprised at how little it had changed since he had last seen it more than a decade earlier. Another verdant flash from behind signaled that his companion had joined him.

"Someone is a fan of bronze."

He nodded at the observation; statuettes of centaurs and dragons and pegasus-riding warriors, among others, littered the tables scattered throughout the room, and in the four corners stood man-height apple trees. He looked over his shoulder to see Narcissa gazing at the décor. "That would be Augusta's doing. Believe it or not, she actually made all of these herself."

"You're right. I don't believe you."

"I can't blame you for that," came a strong voice from the doorway, "but in this case, he is correct." Both Blacks turned to watch Augusta Longbottom enter the room, strands of grey just beginning to show in her blonde hair. She crossed her arms, though her thin, yellow summer robes did little to hide the firm muscles pounding bronze into shape had produced. "Everyone needs a hobby."

He bowed at the waist, his cousin dropping into a curtsy at his side. "Dowager Longbottom, we thank you for accepting us into your lovely home."

"Oddly enough, I don't recall inviting you." The lady of the house huffed. "But if you were able to find this place at all, Albus had to have told you the Secret. Follow me; they are in the dining room."

The guests looked at each other in confusion at the brusque words, and Narcissa whispered, "I don't know. I never had much to do with her."

Sirius grimaced briefly before speeding his steps to approach the striding woman. "If we are an imposition, my lady, you need only tell us, and we will be happy to depart."

Augusta whirled on him, her brown eyes sparking in anger. "Having to host a _Black_ is _always_ an imposition. Your House produced the bitch who tortured my son and daughter-in-law until they were worse than dead, and your precious heiress is clearly cast from the same mold."

_How does she know about Jen's adoption?!_ A memory from the previous April sprang to mind and explained to what she was referring, allowing him to relax ever so slightly. "Dowager Longbottom, if there were anything I or my House could do to reverse what Bellatrix did to Frank and Alice, you would not even have to ask. Anyone who was fortunate enough to have known them loved them." His tone hardened as he continued, "That said, I would appreciate you not presuming that my scion is the same as that mad dog. There is a wide gulf indeed between using the Cruciatus Curse and stunning a fellow competitor during a _school tournament_."

"And yet she's already mastered cursing people in the back. You must be _so_ proud," the woman mocked.

Standing firm under her onslaught, Sirius felt his anger rise and his bearing become even more regal. Regent of the third Ancient and Most Noble House or not, _no one_ talked about Jen like that. Unfortunately, his being a guest meant he could not give her the piece of his mind she so richly deserved. "I see that we are, in fact, quite _un_welcome here. No matter, we can see ourselves out. Come, Narcissa."

Footsteps in the hall alerted them of the newcomer, and Dumbledore rounded a corner. "Augusta, there you are. And Sirius, this is a pleasant surprise. I honestly did not expect you to attend tonight, nor you, Lady Malfoy."

"Circumstances can change without forewarning," the elder Black answered cryptically.

"True, such as our invitation being revoked," continued Sirius. "We apologize for our intrusion, Dame Longbottom. Professor, perhaps we shall attend your next gathering, or perhaps not. Good evening."

"There's no need to be hasty; I'm sure this is all just a misunderstanding. Isn't it, Augusta?"

"I don't answer to you, Albus," said woman shot back. "It has been years since I was a student, and we are not in the Wizengamot Hall now."

The elderly wizard nodded genially. "Correct and correct again, my dear, but war has a way of bringing together even the most unlikely of allies. Only the most selfish of people would not put aside their personal issues for the sake of the Greater Good."

Augusta glared at him for a moment before turning away. "If you are going to be stubborn about this, fine, but know that I'm holding you personally responsible for their actions. If they in any way lead to something bad happening to Neville, I _will_ have recompense." Her piece said, she stomped away from them in the same direction from which the headmaster had arrived.

"That went better than I hoped," Albus said in a chipper voice. "Though I have to say, when I sent you the Secret to this place, I believe I asked you to destroy the letter as soon as you memorized it. Do I need to expect any others of your family to attend tonight or some other time?"

"Andromeda read it as well, though she is unlikely to come unless Narcissa or I am unavailable. Much like last time, she would prefer to simply stay out of the way." He left unsaid that Jen and Dora had also had the Secret given to them in case they needed a safe place to run to. _Though I apparently need to tell them that this is a place of last resort, Jen especially. I don't know that I could trust her alone with Augusta without a fight breaking out._

It was rather depressing that the girl's adoption had already made her a definite enemy, and it had yet to even be revealed!

"I see. Should I worry about anything you learn here finding its way to Voldemort's ears, Lady Malfoy?" The old goat's tone was light, but despite that, Sirius shuddered at the underlying threat. One did not fight in two wars without taking sensible precautions.

Narcissa, on the other hand, was seemingly unaffected. Perhaps her history of standing against the headmaster of Hogwarts kept her from hearing the hidden message despite her normal ability to pick apart the subtleties of people's speech, but more likely the warning was simply meeting her expectations for how this get-together would go. That, or she knew that if anything happened to her, he or Jen would make sure she was avenged. "You have nothing to fear, Mr. Dumbledore. My husband and I have recently separated due to irreconcilable differences, and I myself hold no allegiance to the Dark Lord. Your secrets are safe from him, at least on my part."

"Good, good. That brings me no little comfort." He waved them to follow as he walked deeper into the house. "Would you prefer I call you by your maiden name, then?"

"I think having two Miss Blacks to keep straight would become rather confusing, especially if I find myself traveling to your school again this year," she answered blithely. A smile appeared on her face when Dumbledore twitched at her barb. "Besides, Lucius and I are not yet divorced, nor will we be until his master has been returned to the grave. Meeting with him to discuss the terms of our permanent parting in this current situation is not the wisest plan."

_Not to mention she doesn't want to play all her cards just yet_, Sirius recalled from a conversation they had had a few nights past. _If Lucius happens to find his way in the path of a fatal curse over the course of this war, she'll be away from him yet still hold her place as the Lady of House Malfoy, with all that entails._

Albus nodded in understanding. "Yes, I do recall from your years as a student that you were never one to take a risk unless there was no other option available to you." She bristled, but before she could retaliate, he opened one leaf of the double doors in front of them. "After you."

Squaring his shoulders, Sirius stepped inside and surveyed the assembled Order of the Phoenix. It had taken him three weeks to decide to rejoin the group, far less time than he had needed to agree to Amelia's offer to be an instructor, and even now he was unsure if this was the best option. With Voldemort now specifically targeting Jen, however, he needed to know what the dark wizard was up to if he was to have any chance of circumventing a more direct attempt on her life.

Even if that meant putting his animosity with Dumbledore for repeatedly trying to take her away from the family to the side for now.

_Not that I did or will forgive or forget it. Keep an ear out for Voldemort and an eye on Dumbledore; it's catching two birds with one hex._ After pulling out a chair at the table for Narcissa, he took his own seat and immediately found himself the recipient of Lily's undivided attention. _Maybe this wasn't my best idea, after all._

"My friends, thank you for taking the time to come tonight," the old wizard said, the chattering of the gathered falling into silence. "As you can see, we have gained two additional members tonight. Many of you know Sirius Black from the first incarnation of this organization, and I doubt Narcissa Malfoy needs an introduction. Does anyone have anything to bring up before we discuss our scheduled business?"

Alastor Moody, the famed Mad-Eye, grunted from the other side of the table. "Can they be trusted?"

_Clever move, Dumbledore. You want to know why we're here, why Narcissa's here especially, but you know we likely wouldn't give you a straight answer. Instead, we have to justify ourselves to everyone else, and you'll just figure out what you can from our answers._

"I hope you did not just ask a Slytherin if she can be trusted," Narcissa laughed. "After all, our entire philosophy is built on the premise that no one is completely trustworthy. If, however, you wish to know if you should _distrust_ us, I can say that we are no more likely to betray you than anyone else in this room."

"And how do we know that you're telling the truth?" an unfamiliar woman sitting close to the Auror demanded.

The smirk the Black witch sent back was positively feral. "You just have to trust me."

Sirius rolled his eyes at the minor uproar that remark caused. His cousin loved giving people the runaround, but this was very much _not_ the time for her to amuse herself.

Thankfully, she seemed to reach the same conclusion, for she raised one hand and the protesting Order members stilled. "We all know that my words do not matter; you have already made up your minds. All I will say is that I have my reasons for wanting to see the Dark Lord fall, and those reasons are mine and mine alone. Consider yourselves blessed that I am on your side now."

"_'Blessed'_," James scoffed. "Just why are you so important?"

"Would you not agree that in the political arena, Lucius is by far the most dangerous of the Death Eaters?" she asked sweetly. "You are looking at the woman who spent nearly two decades helping him draft his laws and arguments, who knows their every working and their every loophole. You have gained, and he has lost. Unless, of course, you wish to push my offer of aid aside?"

The vigilantes looked askance to each other, clearly unfamiliar with following the paths the mind of a former Snake took. Assistance finally came to Narcissa from, strangely enough, Lily. "Strategy we can use to block You-Know-Who in that sphere would be greatly appreciated," she said slowly, in the way of someone choosing their words with care. "You certainly have expertise we lack in this regard and would therefore be an extremely useful ally. So long as you do not betray the Order, you are welcome among us."

"I thank you for your greeting, cautious though it may be," Narcissa answered with a nod, her crafty grin growing even wider. "If nothing else, I doubt I shall grow bored here."

Sirius winced. _That can't be a good sign_.

A small frown could just be seen through Dumbledore's long beard before he wiped it away. "Now that we are assured we are all trustworthy, we should begin with— Yes, Molly?"

A redheaded woman bearing a marked similarity to Fabius and Gideon Prewett – Sirius could only assume from her appearance and name that she was the younger sister they had mentioned a few times before their deaths – smiled sheepishly. "Arthur overheard some people gossiping during work today, but is it true that the Ministry has… well…"

"Yes, Molly, it's true." She looked down, and Dumbledore turned his gaze to the rest of the table. "Cornelius will likely make a statement to the _Daily Prophet_ tomorrow on this very subject, but I have recently been removed as Britain's representative to the International Confederation of Wizards. He fears that I would use my position to promote my 'delusion' about Voldemort's"—cue group shudder—"return. It is no great loss, to be honest; I doubt they would have offered any assistance anyway. This is an _'internal matter'_, after all. Thankfully, I still retain my position as Chief Warlock, so I plan to speak to the Wizengamot next weekend. Perhaps they will listen even though Cornelius does not."

Sirius frowned and shook his head. "I'd recommend you not do that." The other Order members looked to him, so he explained, "The Dark Houses have a plan in place to push forward a motion of no confidence should you ever talk about that subject in the chambers. Even should all the Light Houses side with you, the Neutral Houses will be swayed by the fact that you have no evidence to show them that you aren't senile or lying. If you want to keep your authority there, don't do anything unless and until you can back yourself up."

"And how would you know about their plans?" shouted Dedalus Diggle, a short wizard wearing a violently purple top hat.

"The House of Black is traditionally a Dark House. Even though I personally don't subscribe to the same philosophy, I'm still in a wonderful position to eavesdrop." He mentally rolled his eyes; it never ceased to amaze him how easily the House could overshadow the man. Even those he knew from the War, like Diggle, did not seem to remember that he had fought _with_ them.

_On second thought, I know exactly why they can't see me for me: twelve years in Azkaban during which they told themselves that I was no different from my family. The Wizengamot declared me innocent, but they either can't or won't look past the story they told themselves. I'm starting to understand why my parents and Arcturus always told us to ignore the opinions of the masses; if nothing you do will change their view of you, why waste your time trying?_

"Thank you for that warning," Dumbledore said, interrupting his reflection. "I was unaware of such a plot, and should it have succeeded, we would have suffered a grave loss. Can you continue to listen to them for us?"

He nodded. In truth, he would have anyway – knowing the enemy's plans was the first step in countering them – so it was little trouble to relay the relevant portions to this group.

"Anything else?" No one spoke up, so the old man continued, "Severus, is there any news from within Voldemort's camp?"

The greasy haired potioneer stepped forwards from his place against the wall, and despite his ingrained instincts, Sirius forced himself not to make any disparaging comments. How Jen could respect such a twisted example of wizardry, he hadn't a clue. "Last month, I told you that a prisoner escaping his grasp gave him no small amount of grief. I recently discovered that he has ordered Lucius to cease his attempts to locate her and to now focus his efforts on political stratagems to degrade your standing in the Wizengamot. The prisoner herself should be safe so long as she does not needlessly put herself in danger."

"Who was this prisoner, anyway?" James asked, barely withholding a sneer as he spoke to his former romantic rival.

Snape tilted his head in Narcissa's direction. "Interestingly, the prisoner in question was the Lady Malfoy. As I hear it, she refused to join the Death Eaters when the Dark Lord demanded she do so." All eyes turned to said woman, and she pulled up the left sleeve of her gown to showcase her unblemished forearm.

"I am glad to hear that we no longer need to be concerned about her wellbeing. What of the prophecy? Does he still seek it?" requested Dumbledore.

"He does."

"I'm sorry, did you say _'prophecy'_?" The news that a prophecy could be in play worried the canine Animagus. Though Seers used a variety of methods to glean hints about the future, the results of those readings could be anything from what someone would have for breakfast the next morning to a natural disaster taking place a century from now. A legitimate, honest to Merlin, fall-into-a-trance prophecy, though…

Those were never about the small stuff.

"Indeed," the leader of the group answered. "It is inside the Department of Mysteries and pertains to Voldemort and young Danny. We must ensure that he never gets a chance to listen to it."

Lily shook her head. "I still don't know why we can't just have Danny go down with you and take it out of there if it's so important to keep it out of You-Know-Who's hands."

"I do not know if Danny touching the prophecy would cause it to reveal its contents, and I would rather he not be burdened with the knowledge contained within while he still has an opportunity to enjoy his childhood. Besides, the Unspeakables do not allow anyone to remove their records from the Hall of Prophecies, so the point would be moot even if that were not the case."

His explanation did not seem to mollify Lily any, but she nonetheless crossed her arms and leaned back into her chair. Seeing that she would raise no more complaints on that subject tonight, Dumbledore turned to Mad-Eye. "Is the guard schedule working out as you hoped?"

"Aye, it'll do, though if Sirius is up to it, I'll add him to the roster and send out new schedules for everyone."

"Are women not allowed to guard this precious prophecy, or do you just not want me around?" Narcissa asked innocently.

"You're the one who told us not to trust a Slytherin. I'm just taking your advice."

"Thank you, Alastor," Dumbledore cut in before Narcissa could reply to that. "Remus, how have talks with the werewolves gone?"

Remus looked up from his teacup, and Sirius winced at how worn-out his old friend seemed. "Not as well as we hoped, but not as bad as we feared, either. Greyback has been stirring them up, but after I pointed out that legislation against us became so much worse after the first war ended precisely because the Packs sided with You-Know-Who, many have begun to express doubts. It should buy us time if nothing else."

"Very well. Rubeus recently sent me a letter saying that he is now in Eastern Europe; it should not be long before he reaches the giant colonies. Hestia, what about the vampire clans? Have you managed to locate them?"

"I found where they _were_," the witch who had questioned Narcissa qualified, "but all their roosts were deserted when I got there. From the few letters left behind, I think the clans might have gone to the Continent."

Dumbledore stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I can't say that isn't a good thing; there is little we could have offered them that would have been more tempting than what Voldemort would promise. If they leave the fight voluntarily, that is one fewer ally he has at his side.

"Part of the chat I had with Cornelius concerned the Dementors, and needless to say, he will not remove them from their capacities as guards of Azkaban. Kingsley, can you keep an ear out for any news concerning unauthorized movements?"

A large African wizard seated a few places down from Sirius nodded.

"Very good. Thankfully for us, our enemy currently seems concerned with moving his plans forward quietly, so we have time before he sends the Death Eaters out on raids. Alastor is still offering training on basic dueling, so if you need refreshment on that subject, see him soon. Unless there are any other topics we need to address…" No one said anything to that. "…then I call this meeting to a close. Our next meeting will be scheduled as soon as new information becomes available. I wish everyone a pleasant night."

The scraping of chairs against the floor and muttering rehashing of what had just been discussed filled the air, and Sirius gently nudged Narcissa. They rose from the table, intent on leaving before anyone else could question her allegiances further.

"Sirius!"

_And also to avoid her_, he added as he turned to the redhead rounding the table. "We really need to head out—"

"Oh, that's fine. I'll show you back to the Floo, and we can talk on the way."

He plastered a fake smile on his face; talking to Lily was not something he wanted to do right now. Unfortunately, he could not think of a polite way to blow her off, so he merely nodded stiffly and followed the woman.

Once outside the dining room, Lily shut the door and turned to Narcissa. "I don't mean to pry, but many of us have been worried ever since we heard that You-Know-Who was holding someone prisoner. Are you okay?"

"I am doing well enough under the circumstances," the piebald witch answered drolly. "As a Pureblood and the wife of his chief lieutenant, the Dark Lord was careful not to harm me overmuch. I thank you for your concern, however."

They walked almost ten whole feet before the subject Sirius knew Lily wanted to discuss finally came up. "Did she come with you?"

"I can only assume you're talking about Jen?" At the woman's eager nod, he glared at her disapprovingly. "No, she didn't. Voldemort is the problem of _our_ generation, not hers. It is not the responsibility of a fourteen-year-old, undertrained witch to fight a Dark Lord, especially not when she wants nothing to do with this war in the first place. Besides, I don't recall seeing Danny in there, either."

Lily sighed. "Sirius, I didn't mean that this is her responsibility; I'm honestly of the same mind as you about both of them. What I was going to say was that Danny, Neville, and the Weasleys' children often come here with us and entertain themselves elsewhere while we have our meetings, and if… _Jen_ decides that she wants to do the same, she is more than welcome."

"I believe Augusta thinks differently about that. In fact, she just about threw _us_ out of the house when we first arrived. Regardless of whether or not I want her exposed to that kind of venom,"—_mostly because I'm afraid of how far she'd escalate things_—"let's not kid ourselves. If the letters you got from Hogwarts last year were anything like what we heard, you know that Danny and Jen's relationship is at _best_ antagonistic. There's no telling what would happen without someone there to referee them."

A grimace graced her face. "Well, at least they couldn't curse each other—"

"That's not _exactly_ true," Narcissa interrupted with a faint smirk. "Your son might not be able to use magic over the summer, but Jen wields a legacy wand. That means no Trace."

"Oh…"

The pair of Blacks came to a halt in the middle of the hallway, Lily stopping a moment later. "I do believe we know how to get from the Floo from here. Thank you again for your welcome."

Lily seemed to hear the dismissal in Narcissa's words, and with a glance at Sirius, she slumped in disappointment. "If you're sure. Could you tell her hello for me?" At their nods, she turned around and walked off at a much less enthusiastic pace than she had previously displayed.

"It's shameful how obvious she makes her desperation," Narcissa observed when the redhead was out of sight.

"What do you mean?"

"Telling us about the children's gathering during the meetings, passing on her greetings, even stopping the argument about whether or not I am trustworthy." She harrumphed. "That woman might as well wear a sign reading, _'Please help me get back into the good graces of the daughter I abandoned like rubbish when she was just a toddler and who now despises my very existence._'"

He raised a brow. "I get the first two things you mentioned, but how does saying you can be trusted involve Jen?"

"Because while she may be an uncouth Muggleborn, she's not an idiot. She knows that we are the only route she has to talk to Jen, and if she pushes us away, she'll never build any ties with her. Instead of trying to take what she wants now like the Gryffindor she is, she's playing the long game. I'm almost impressed."

* * *

"A prophecy, huh?" Jen whispered to herself as she floated in the London sky. She always did her best thinking while hanging amidst nothingness, a small mental effort tweaking gravity and anchoring her to an arbitrary point in the air. Since the sight of a person flying was odd at Hogwarts and even stranger here in the heart of the city, she generally limited herself to the nighttime hours. After tonight, she certainly needed some time to herself.

Cissy had attended a meeting of the Order of the Phoenix alongside Sirius just that evening, and the information she brought back was quite unexpected. _The idea that that idiot Danny Potter is tied to Voldemort through the mysterious workings of fate is just… so hard to believe. I mean, he survived the Killing Curse when he was one because of our grandfather's sacrifice, but that had nothing to do with __**him**__. He certainly didn't seem like he was some kind of destined savior the times I fought him this year. At most, he's a dark witch's lunch._

_So, what could the connection between those two be? Dammit, Cissy, now you've gotten me curious._ She sighed; it was not as if she could just walk into the Ministry and look for herself. There would surely be guards and traps and…

Her thoughts slowed as memories bubbled up inside her. These memories were not her own; they belonged instead to a low-level Ministry employee named Percy Weasley. Weasley had attended the Yule Ball in the place of his boss, Bartemius Crouch, though he had not known that the part of Crouch was actually being played by the man's supposedly dead Death Eater son. She had had the misfortune, or perhaps fortune, of sitting next to him during dinner before the dancing started and had stolen the knowledge in his head, mostly out of boredom. Still, that impetuous decision was now revealing itself to be a boon.

Weasley, though an absolutely insipid human being, was a veritable encyclopedia of information on the Ministry. His goal was to become the Minister of Magic, and to that end he had learned everything he could get his hands on about the various departments. He had also constantly worked late, which meant he was familiar with the nightly routine – or lack of it, to be more precise. Though the Ministry's working hours ended at five in the afternoon, they did not shut down the Floo precisely for workaholics like Weasley who might stay up until nearly dawn or junior Aurors or Hit Wizards who were left with their seniors' paperwork. At – she pulled out her silver pocket watch – not quite two o'clock in the morning, the building would be almost entirely empty.

She could take a look at this supposed prophecy for herself.

Ten minutes and a great deal of muttered cursing later, Jen dipped her hand into the stone pot on the mantel before tossing glittering white Floo powder into the fireplace. She stepped into the billowing green flames and softly called, "Ministry of Magic." Her sonar vanished as she walked through the corridor between fires, and a minor effort wrapped the approaching rays of light around herself to render herself invisible. As an added bonus, the utter lack of light, while blinding her once again, also rid her of the dizzying view that was the swirling grates.

A surge of fire erupted from one of the fourteen fireplaces at her destination, and she waited a moment for her sonar to grow as it adapted to the Ministry's wards. With Weasley's memories to guide her as well as sate her curiosity about what the building looked like, she made her way through the silent Atrium in the general direction of the lifts, correcting her route slightly when a golden arch separating the reception area from the start of the Ministry proper entered her range. Of the two dozen brass grills, her pilfered knowledge told her, most would carry her upwards to the majority of the building's floors. The remaining five at the very back instead went down, towards the single landing that allowed entry to floors nine and ten. It was one of these that she chose.

Soon, the doors of the lift opened at her destination. _"Level nine, Department of Mysteries,"_ came a calm woman's voice, and she cocked her head in surprise at the greeting. Was the Ministry just _asking_ people to peek into its most important locations? Leaving the lift, she walked past the unfamiliar magical core that was resting against one wall, snores issuing from the draped stranger that she assumed was the 'guard' Cissy mentioned hearing about. She ignored the stairway leading even farther down that she now knew went to the criminal courtroom at the tenth level and instead made her way down the hall to a single door set flush in the wall.

Opening that door led to a very strange room. Ten other entrances were positioned at regular intervals around the circular wall, with thin candles between each one. She allowed the door she had just gone through to close as she wondered which one would hold the prophecy she was searching for. The instant the door slid into its frame, however, a web of magic sprang up from the floor.

"Shite!" A reflexive flick of her left wrist manifested a gravity well near the ceiling, and she let it yank her off the floor and out of the net's grasp. After a moment when nothing came out and attacked her, she forced herself to relax and noticed that the stone below her was rapidly spinning. Carding mental fingers through the spell she had escaped caused her to frown. _It's not overtly dangerous, nor even mildly debilitating. In fact, all I can feel from it is a sense of… stability, almost. What is it?_

The floor finally slowed and stopped, and when its rotation ceased, so did the charm. _So they're linked. A spinning floor and… Ah, I understand now. By having the floor move, it disorients any would-be intruders, but at the same time, the Unspeakables would have a hard time getting to their work if they were dizzy and falling all over themselves all the time. In addition to holding them to the ground, that spell probably also prevents vertigo._ Landing lightly back on the ground and putting the door she had come through at her back, she pondered where to go before shrugging and pushing open the first door to her left.

As far as she could feel, which totaled to about four meters in any direction, the room she had entered was completely empty. She debated with herself for a minute before dismissing her invisibility; her eyes did not provide as detailed of information as her sonar did, but sight extended farther. Blinking away the spots the sudden influx of light produced, she noted a small fleet of broomsticks on the other side of the room before she looked up.

_That's… incredible._

Above her floated what could only be hundreds of orbs, all of them circling a bright glow in the middle of the free space. Taking to the air, she swam among them as she tried her best to identify just what was studied here. A dull yellow sphere with a grey disc around it looked extremely familiar, and following a hunch, she moved closer to the center and spotted a blue orb half as wide as she was tall sporting patches of green and white.

_That has to be Earth, and Saturn, and Jupiter with its Great Red Spot there._ Admiring the exquisitely detailed model of the solar system for a moment, she canceled her flight while charming herself to be truly weightless, then kicked off from the replica Moon to drift downwards to the ground. A flip followed by dismissing her spell let her land lightly onto the floor. _That was fun. I'll need to break in here again sometime_.

She looked around and cocked her head when she realized there were not one but three doors in this room: the one she had entered from was opposite the wall covered in brooms, yet the other walls also held doors. The one to the left of her entrance particularly intrigued her. _The floor isn't sloped, so that door should lead to the hallway the guard is sleeping in. In fact…_ She moved over to the odd portal and paced to the 'front' wall and back. _…unless I'm very much mistake, that doorway is in nearly the exact same place as the stairwell connecting the ninth and tenth floors. How is that possible?_

Curiosity burning within her, she gently pushed that door inwards and peeked through. What she saw nearly made her drool.

Books. Lots and lots and _lots_ of books.

Entering the library fully, Jen clicked her tongue loudly and listened for the faint echo it produced. _Similar acoustics to Hogwarts's library, so it's probably about the same size._ She walked over to the nearest bookcase and glanced at some of the titles: _Effects of Time Dilation on Potion Brewing, volumes 1 through 4. Fae Species. Harmony and Disharmony in Combined Sumerian and Linear Rune Scripts. Arithmantic Breakdown of the Imperius Curse_.

She blinked and looked again at that slim text. The Imperius Curse was one she had used for years, despite not knowing its proper English name, and while it was a little tricky to get right, she would not have expected its formula to be anywhere near long enough to have an entire book dedicated to it.

_This is practically the Restricted Section blown up to the same size as the rest of the library. I could spend days getting lost in here. Literally; there doesn't seem to be any sort of filing system whatsoever. None of those books have anything in common with any of the others, and yet they share a shelf._

Shaking her head and causing her dark tresses to swish, she forced herself away from the leather-bound temptations and towards the door opposite the one leading to the planetary model. It was interesting that there was also a door at the front just as there had been in the previous room. Opening the new door, she stopped midway through the doorway and gaped.

Directly above her was Pluto.

_That… How?_ She turned around and glared at the smooth black panel she _thought_ she had used before. Reaching out one hand, she pulled on it, but her magic could not overpower whatever force was now keeping it closed. The same proved true for the other side of the door in the space room.

Slowly stepping back and allowing the door to swing shut, she pinched the bridge of her nose. Perhaps a lack of sleep was why she had gotten so incredibly turned around. She shrugged and pushed the door open again, only to find that the replica solar system had been replaced with rows and rows of bubbling cauldrons.

_Either I'm losing my mind, or these rooms aren't physically connected to each other. By the Baron, I hope it's the latter._ Deciding to test her theory, she closed the door and opened it again multiple times. A room full of clocks and a giant bell jar. A room with an enormous tank of green water in the center. A room that had its walls covered by blackboards. The potions room again. A dark room filled with shelves.

The ambiance of this room piqued her interest, and she stepped through the doorway. The moment she crossed the threshold, she felt a tiny bit of the magic flowing out her hands and down her hair stream forwards and merge with a thread of energy that came at her from deeper inside the room. Wary of this new development, she approached the lightly dust-covered spheres she could feel and examined them. Each shelf contained dozens of the pale blue orbs, and under them were labels bearing abbreviations and question marks. What was more, the balls were all wrapped in the same prickly spell, one that flared when she brought her hand near.

_So they're just like strippers; you can look, but you can't touch. If this is the Hall of Prophecies, listening to the one about Potter and Voldemort is going to be difficult._ Not to mention that she was anxious about what the cord tied to her magic likely meant. She would much rather not share the dubious honor of being in a similar boat to the one her now half-brother was in. _Still, now's the time to look for it._

From her pocket she drew an elaborately folded sheet of paper. When she was working as an actual prostitute in Candyland rather than tending the bar, her roommate Allison had been a fan of origami and had tried to teach her how to do it; she had many talents, but it turned out that making animals out of paper was most definitely _not_ one of them. Of all the things Allison had coached her on, the lone creature she could still make was a rather pathetic-looking crane, and it was this that she brought to life with a touch of her magic. Stretching its wings, the paper bird leapt off her hand and flew deeper into the room.

Jen jogged after the construct and was again thankful that she had had paper among her belongings at all. The magical world did not use the stuff – it saw no need to switch to a new medium when parchment lasted longer, could more easily be cleaned and reused, and was less likely to be damaged by errant spells – but while her coworkers knew she could use magic, they were unaware of a wider wizarding society, instead thinking that it was a skill unique to her. She therefore kept a small amount of paper in her desk for correspondence with them. Before folding the crane, she had used her blood to sketch _ehwaz_ – the Futhark rune for movement and animation – in the middle of the page, and imbuing the character with a locator spell caused it to home in on the prophecy she was after.

Her disquiet increased as the tiny golem led her deeper into the room and in the same direction as the thin connection to her own prophecy. After a couple of minutes, the bird flew between two cases and alighted on one sphere. Unlike the others nearby, the magic of this orb was sedate, swirling peacefully around it before drifting off to meet her. The yellowed label made the witch groan aloud.

_S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D.  
__12 May, 1980  
__Dark Lord,  
__? (Danny Potter),  
__and ?_

_And I make three_. She lifted the ball from its recessed stand, sending the origami crane aloft again, and tentatively poked it with her magic. There was a reaction, much to her satisfaction, and white smoke poured out through the otherwise solid glass before floating upwards and forming the image of a woman with large goggles and numerous shawls wrapped around her shoulders. The figure hesitated a moment before speaking in a gravelly voice.

_"Trumpets blast and the Dark Lord trembles at the approach of the One meant to Vanquish him… Born to those who have thrice Defied him, born as the Seventh Month dies… a child, marked by the Dark Lord himself, will be raised in Light… another, knowing only Hate and Cruelty, will Fall into darkness… the Contest between them will Shape our world… should the Dark Lord not fall at the One's hand, his Reign will be forevermore… the One with the Power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the Seventh Month dies…"_

Jen's fist clenched and relaxed repeatedly around the prophecy orb as the mist retreated, her rage resisting her attempts to restrain it. From deep within her, a monster roared its wrath for all to hear, and the blue spheres within her sonar's range exploded into shards of glass and clouds of smoke, a cacophony of voices shrieking muddled nonsense for long seconds before petering out.

There was silence.

"No." Her voice was quiet, but it gained strength as she felt her resolve harden. "So what if some bitch who sounds like she smokes five packs a day says either Potter or I am destined to bring down Voldemort? That means nothing. _I. Don't. Believe. In. Fate_."

She threw the prophecy to the ground; it shattered, and a gust of wind blew away the figure before it could echo its earlier pronouncement. "This whole thing was a waste of time. I don't know why I even bothered coming here."

Burning the crane to ash, she walked down the hall to the door connecting to the circular entrance hall. Once out of the room, she floated a foot above the floor as it spun, opening each door one by one until she found the exit. She strode to the golden grilles and impatiently punched the button that would call a lift. Her only goal now was to get home and go to bed.

She just wanted this day to be over already.

* * *

**Let the interpretation of this new prophecy begin…**

**I know we're all used to thinking about the DMLE as being useless against Voldemort, and I can't deny that they don't have a good showing in canon, but something that struck me while I was writing this chapter is just **_**how little**_** time they had to get ready. Fudge finally admitted that the Dark Lord had returned in June of 1996, and Voldemort launched his assault on the Ministry in August of 1997. A year really isn't that long, and as Amelia mentioned above, it isn't like she can just pop out more Aurors whenever they're needed.**

**Silently Watches out.**


End file.
